Photo boxes

Letters to God,  Limited edition fine art print

These are much photographed times, and each one of us is a photographer. For many like me, taking images and sharing them is a fundamental way of consuming life. To the extent that I don't quite know what to make of the visible unless I  have framed it in a photograph !

In my mind I never stop composing pictures, reading light and calculating exposure values.

It is a problem! Gone are the days when Dad's Yashica would be pulled out of its bag for special occasions, holidays, birthdays and festivals...I have to put the camera away on important occasions lest I  forget to enjoy and  just be there rather than hyper record and lose the moment completely!

The most pleasurable part of taking the picture is actually seeing it in print! Never mind the digital revolution, nothing beats an actual picture that one can feel, better still process it with ones own hands!
Even when a dark room is no longer easily available, the thrill of receiving those `do not bend' envelopes from the printers that come bearing your work is truly indescribable.

One day early this year, I pulled something out of one such  sacrosanct envelope, and bent it! not just that, soaked, tore, plastered and  moulded the photograph ! Sacrilege? right?.. and  how I did suffer too! For this gorgeous textured fiber paper does not print cheap!  

Here are two actual photo boxes then, the first made as a composite of 21 images taken across traditional homes around Rajasthan and Uttarpradesh- The Haveli box. While the second is made with pictures  of random temple walls.

The Haveli box

Letters to God, table top box

Hand painted detail.