Panorama

Walls of Expression: Posters as Public Discourse in Kannur

PhotoMail — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 09:03:19 +0000

In Walls of Expression, Akhila Krishnan explores the vibrant visual landscape of Kannur, where posters transform walls into communal storytellers. The study highlights how Theyyam festival and election posters serve dual roles: cultural preservation and political engagement. These images, rich with symbolism and public discourse, reveal Kannur's unique synthesis of sacred tradition and contemporary politics, embodying a visual narrative where heritage and progress coexist in a complex, dynamic dialogue.

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A pale blue dot and a few other thoughts | Joyel K Pious

PhotoMail — Sun, 03 Nov 2024 07:11:22 +0000

The article explores four significant space photographs that have shaped our understanding of the cosmos: Voyager 1's "Pale Blue Dot" showing Earth as a tiny speck from billions of kilometers away, Venera missions' first images of Venus's hostile surface, Spirit rover's bluish Martian sunset, and James Webb Space Telescope's "First Deep Field" revealing thousands of ancient galaxies. Through these images, Pious weaves together themes of human curiosity, technological innovation, and our place in the universe, while noting that these photographs gain their significance not from aesthetic appeal but from their historical, philosophical, and scientific importance. The piece begins with the author's childhood memory of a science fiction story and ends contemplating our place in the vast cosmos, highlighting how space photography has transformed our perspective of reality.

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Battle of the gods | Metabolism of Culture

PhotoMail — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 13:28:10 +0000

In "The Battle of the Gods," Tulsi Swarna Lakshmi analyzes Indian photographer Abul Kalam Azad's "Men of Pukar" series, using it as a lens to explore the transformation of cultural symbols in India. The author focuses on the shift from the buffalo to the cow as a sacred animal, viewing this change as emblematic of larger cultural metamorphoses. This transition is reflected in the myth of Durga slaying Mahishasura, a narrative that transcends a simple tale of good versus evil. Instead, it represents the complex interplay between indigenous traditions and incoming Vedic culture. By examining the evolving perceptions of the buffalo—from a revered symbol of fertility and strength to a representation of evil—Lakshmi uncovers the deeper cultural metabolism of India, revealing how symbols and myths adapt to reflect changing societal dynamics.

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Pathumayude Aadu by Abul Kalam Azad

PhotoMail — Tue, 20 Aug 2024 05:18:57 +0000

In Pathumayude Aadu, the author delves into the avant-garde investigative journalism pioneered in Kerala, particularly highlighting the innovative portrayal of Basheer's beloved characters, which set a new standard for how literature could be explored and documented within the realm of journalism.

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Photography, Art and Photographic Art: Notes on a Troubled Relationship

PhotoMail — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 06:11:56 +0000

In Photography, Art and Photographic Art, Arjun explores the evolving relationship between photography and art, examining historical shifts in perception, technological impacts, and the role of photographic imagery in shaping modern visual culture and artistic expression.

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A monologue with timeless performers

PhotoMail — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 05:24:09 +0000

The gaze of a photographer can speak a lot about his/her relationship with the subject. Andreas places the camera on the ground or on a level lower than that of the subjects. Devoid of any movement, it watches the men as they go on with their acts. I would normally feel annoyed or interrupted by a camera watching me, but the men here seem to be interacting with it in a rather playful mood. They give little notice to the camera most of the time. But when the performers decide to mind the camera, they all react differently. Friendliness, curiosity, elation, annoyance and resignation reflect on their face alternately. Andreas told me that he kept the camera at the lowest possible angle to reassure his subjects that neither he nor his camera posed any threat. However, does that mean the men gave consent to record them?

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Fragmented Souls in a Mercury-stained Pietà, Minamata (film 2020)

PhotoMail — Tue, 20 Dec 2022 06:17:14 +0000

Minamata (2020), directed by Andrew Levitas begins with a glimpse of ‘Tomoko and Mother in the Bath’, shot by Eugene in 1971. As the image pans out, one can hear Tomoko’s mother Ryoko Kamimura singing to her daughter. The world stops for a moment… This powerful image changed the world of editorial photography. It is simple yet deeply disturbing. It portrays love, not violence, but it is not the kind of love that would let you cuddle in your comfort zone. It is a love that would shake and stir things up.

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Invitation to a feast at our home

PhotoMail — Sun, 20 Nov 2022 12:10:16 +0000

Entropy — a performance inspired from fear, on peace — was organised at Forplay Society, Mattanchery on October 29 and 30. Rather than representing a single concept, Entropy develops in each spectator differently depending on their association with their surroundings. As a transdisciplinary work of art, it fuses theatre and film, which complement each other throughout the performance.

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Taboos and totems, the holy and the unholy

PhotoMail — Tue, 06 Sep 2022 06:03:50 +0000

There is an intrinsic conflict when anything becomes a totem to one and a taboo to another. But when seen objectively, these epical animals share one thing in common – mystical elements attributed to the tamable and productive or the untamable and powerful. The greater their contribution to humans survival and economic well-being, the more sacred they become.

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The Meeting of Two Legends – MGR and Mammootty

PhotoMail — Mon, 08 Nov 2021 07:36:13 +0000

From the erstwhile Madras, on the inauguration day, MGR arrived at the Cochin old airport, and I was there to shoot him. As a big fan of MGR, obviously one among the millions of MGR lovers, I cherished my fascination to meet and shoot him. A master performer who excelled in playing fashionable, romantic, globetrotting and adorable heroes, MGR was unique by all standards. As most of the journalists and photographers took images of his arrival and left, I decided to stick around.

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Body of a woman by Ra Sh

PhotoMail — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 15:41:53 +0000

Photo Mail presents a panoramic view of the art of photography’s Interaction and Interrelation with other art mediums such as literature architecture, and other visual media. Poetry and Photography column curated by noted Indian poet Ra Sh and Indian photographer Abul Kalam Azad.

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Crows: Photographing the Familiar | Abul Kalam Azad

PhotoMail — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 13:12:56 +0000

Photographs can make familiar objects, places, and people more familiar. Everyday mundane encounters and banal objects, when photographed, instill an interest in its viewer to observe the ignored. For, when we look at familiar objects, again and again, it reveals something or the other that was not seen during the first instance.

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Huge and Historic: On the First Cochin Carnival

PhotoMail — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 05:17:16 +0000

After my father’s demise, I stumbled upon a few negatives he had preserved along with some valuable documents. It was amidst this, I found a few strips of the negatives of the Carnival Parade 1985 (The First Cochin Carnival), the culminating event of the year-long Beach Festival (1984-85). The origin of the Cochin Carnival is a lot more straightforward than what is being popularly narrated today. It began as a celebration of the UN Declaration of 1985 as the International Youth Year. Such a remarkable cultural event was made possible in Kochi thanks to its rich cosmopolitan history.

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Microhistories of Unsung Heroes

PhotoMail — Mon, 09 Aug 2021 08:28:10 +0000

Of all the artists I met at Kalapeedam, Chicku was closest to me, as there were many things common between us. Chicku was also a drop-out, self-taught, and nomadic. By nature, he was timid and tranquil. Most of his works were surrealistic animal and plant forms. For his study, we spent several days trekking and exploring the forests and mountainous regions of South India. A wonderful painter with unmatchable skill and capability, Chicku brought out his artistic expression with a lot of rebellion and originality.

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Hitchhiking Days

PhotoMail — Wed, 10 Mar 2021 08:44:44 +0000

Most of the Indian photographers learned from their foreign masters and hence, their styles continued to dominate Indian photography. They were either voyeuristic visual trophies that professed, “I had been there, seen that, met him”, or a tool that propagated “top-down let’s-look-at-the-suffering” sort of charity or propaganda of the photographer/client.

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Mattancherry: My Cosmopolitan Hometown

PhotoMail — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 05:46:17 +0000

Mattancherry has been a microcosm of authentic cosmopolitanism, many ethnicities and faiths coexisting together, with its beautiful contrasts and combinations. I grew up there, in one of its small boroughs called Kochangadi. This Muslim dominated waterfront settlement had – and still has – a few Jewish, Ezhava and Christian families. Apart from a synagogue and a few churches, there are several small and big mosques that belong to different ethnic groups or factions of Muslims.

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Sepia Tinted Memory

PhotoMail — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 09:59:29 +0000

Our family name is Pattanam, an acronym for the Tamil word Patthanathukarar (which means ‘hailing from a port town’). We could have been from one of the earliest seaports of Tamilakam (the region corresponding to the present South India) such as Kaveripoompatanam (Chola Port Pukar) or Kayalpattanam (Pandyan Port Korkai). Trading took my forefathers to different parts of Tamilakam and they eventually settled in Mattancherry.

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Contemporary Photography as Sighting Vying for Citing

PhotoMail — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 06:32:06 +0000

Sighting is always accidental and definitely at times eagerly waited for. Examples could be taken from two different types of star gazing; one from astronomy and the other from the film world. Crazy fans of both astronomy and film stars do wait for the sighting of their focus of interest and the knowledge about their appearance is limited and vague. In the former’s case precision spotting is possible now with technological advancements but in the latter case the information of a star’s arrival is pretty vague and it is not even necessary that he/she appears in the expected point of entry. In both the cases there is a long and patient waiting. But among the innumerable images captured by the crazy fans or amateur photographers none qualifies as a ‘citable’ image. The citable images are those clicked and distributed selectively or ‘officially’ by the authorities.

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Flâneur’s Notes II, Image is an Artefact

PhotoMail — Mon, 21 Dec 2020 07:22:15 +0000

The lone boot is rather a disturbing image; much pain inducing than the aggressive and cautious posture of the freedom fighters backed up by the Indian Army (definitely Kishore Parekh is on the winning side as he was taken to the combat zone by an Indian army General in his vehicle). A closer look reveals that the boot does not belong to the fighters. They wear rubber slippers and are not in combat fatigue. The image tells something more; the Indian army gives the backup and ammunition to the native freedom fighters but does not fight from the front.

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Flâneur Notes: The Truth of Old Photographs

PhotoMail — Mon, 07 Dec 2020 09:08:15 +0000

The location is Rabindra Bhavan, Mandi House, New Delhi, the seat of three academies (Fine Arts, Music, and Literature). It also has a three storey gallery designed by Habib Rahman, an erstwhile PWD Engineer, and father of noted photographer and activist, Ram Rahman, where hopeful artists come from faraway places to make it big in the art scene.

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A Sense of Dislocation

PhotoMail — Mon, 24 Sep 2018 07:17:59 +0000

Indian photography hasn’t seen many such explorations that interact and intersect with other media such as light art. But this has started to change in the last couple of years, with a few photographers trying to do light painting; and it is in this context that Joyel K Pious and Gaurav Rachamalla’s collaborative photo project becomes striking. Although this style is popular in the west, this collaborative project stands tall and distinctive amidst the usual Indian street and documentary photographs. It probes the philosophical underpinnings that are intrinsic to the medium itself as well as pose several questions related to urbanisation.

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On Ajith Nedumangad’s Photographs

PhotoMail — Sun, 12 Aug 2018 22:16:37 +0000

It is the sheer absurdity of the sculptures created and photographed by Ajith that hits the viewer right from the off – juxtapositions (reminiscent of the Dadaists and Surrealists) in which materials and the forms they are used to create are often in conflict with each other and, at other times, are self-referential in a darkly humorous manner.

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Manigramam, Prehistoric Merchant Guild of Tamil Legacy

PhotoMail — Sun, 12 Nov 2017 20:34:32 +0000

The existence of Manigramam (Manikkiramam) in Pukar, in this context, is an important surviving evidence of our shared lineage. As literary sources attest, Pukar was one of the gateways through which the Afro-Arabian traders entered Southern India. This simple board points to three thousand and odd years of cultural exchange that happened across borders.

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Sacred Thread, Hierarchal hegemony and identity

PhotoMail — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 02:49:53 +0000

Controversy surrounds the origin of Brahmin clans, which is divided into ‘gotras’, and as such mutually opposing thoughts and evidences – both scriptural and historical – are put forth by the differing factions. As far as South India is concerned, the Tamil Brahmins and their Vedic ideas started spreading during the period when Buddhism and Jainism was gaining popularity (around 5th century BCE).

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Palmyra, Caste system in India

PhotoMail — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 20:43:49 +0000

In South India, coconut palm and palmyra tapping was practiced by the indigenous population who, later during the process of class/caste consolidation, were called the Shanars (Channars). These early settlers considered Palmyra as the single most miraculous tree and were the largest consumers of its products. Scaling a Palmyra, which can grow up to 100 feet, is a rather specialized job done by the men.

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Gaze, Metaphor of Indian farming

PhotoMail — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 02:29:53 +0000

In this photograph, the farmer is not the one who is gazed upon. He is actually returning the gaze. There is an act of seeing and being seen. He becomes more present with an unspoken communication that is transpiring between the photographer and himself. There is a connection, an intimate relation between them.

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Parathavar, Etymology of Naval Force

PhotoMail — Sun, 03 Sep 2017 20:41:18 +0000

The life of fishermen has a certain rhythm and the timings are in tune with nature – the weather, the water current, the movement and the life cycle of fishes. They all go and return at different times - the modern day ‘nine to five routine’ is not applicable here. For example, the crab catchers usually go during the late evening to spread their nets. They would go back again in the early morning to collect their catch.

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Cauvery, River Valley Civlisation

PhotoMail — Sun, 27 Aug 2017 10:17:53 +0000

River Cauvery - the lifeline of South India – that traverses through all the four states and Puducherry Union territory is personified as a goddess/woman. Several rituals, along her course, have been practiced since pre-historic times. The most important amongst them are the ones conducted at the mouth where the river merges with the infinite ocean – the end of a journey often analogized with the journey of a human life.

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Stucco Sculpture, Pre-hisoric Memories and Conflict

PhotoMail — Sun, 20 Aug 2017 01:59:19 +0000

As the tradition dictates, this stucco sculpture is not ‘signed’ by anybody either, even though it is not that old. Stucco techniques have been known to sculptors for millennia. Some historians opine that the pyramids were plastered white. The Greeks and Romans are known to have used stucco in constructions and sculptures. It must be during this period that Sangam era Tamils (the predecessors of modern south Indians) learned this technique, through maritime traders.

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Silappathikaram, A Tragic Epic

PhotoMail — Sun, 13 Aug 2017 06:03:55 +0000

Tamil people are familiar with this scene from the Classical period epic Silappathikaram. They are aware of the background of Kannaki, the lady in the pretty saree, and Kovalan, her husband, who is receiving the anklet. The scene depicts a pivotal moment in which the once wealthy and now penniless merchant Kovalan is returning to his wife, after a brief, passionate affair with a dancer and courtesan, Matavi.

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On Photography, Remembering Susan Sontag

PhotoMail — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 23:38:39 +0000

On Susan Sontag, a poem by famous Malayalam-English poet N Ravi Shankar

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