Follow the Eye

Imitation is the best form of flattery. At the new show ‘Of Silence, Solitude and Slow Time’, a collection of photographs taken by Giridhar Khasnis, this question hangs in the air. Khasnis ushers me inside the gallery, showing off the black and white images framed in pristine white wood. “Oh yes, the entire show is inspired by Raghu Rai,” he replies, acknowledging the references to the iconic photographer. “But none of these pictures were taken with such deliberation. They just happened.” The works displayed at the show are the results of a forty-year-old hobby and have been put up for public consumption at the insistence of a friend.

It is a wholly unexpected experience considering that Khasnis has been an art critic and curator working with artists rather than being one. The images are visually striking and the monochrome effect serves to accentuate the feeling that Khasnis wants to convey. As he puts it, “For me, a good picture carries a subtle rhythm, a poetic subtext, a spiritual nuance. Henri Cartier-Bresson once said: ‘What reinforces the content of a photograph is the sense of rhythm – the relationship between shapes and values.’  But I think Raghu Rai put it beautifully when he said: They say a picture is worth a thousand words.  But a thousand words can be just noise.  So, let me suggest something more acceptable: silence, for instance.”

In the digital era, Khasnis prefers to use basic tools to enhance the images. “Most of them are done in the same way as I would do in the darkroom in the analog era – like cropping, burning, adding brightness/contrast, etc.  Sometimes, I combine two images – a collage of sorts – that would produce a stunning new visual.  We would do that in the analog days by sandwiching negatives and sometimes even carving on negatives.” The effects are tangible but one needs to look out for them. One photograph shows a young monk walking amidst trees. With straight posture and bent head, it would seem he is on a clear cut path. But the path is just white fluffy clouds, an effect achieved by sandwiching two images. Then there is the silhouette of a large looming Buddha against a clear sky. “Guess how tall this statue is?” Khasnis asks me. I look and then, actually look. Low in the foreground are the barely noticeable spires of ubiquitous cell phone towers. The statue suddenly becomes a small idol which was propped on a parapet wall and the image thus taken to scale up the proportions. A common photography trick which, in an august company, seems sorcery. There are laughs and that is when one looks at the images with renewed interest.

Khasnis speaks of his travels across the country and the world. A keen photographer, which we conclude from this show, his camera has often looked for something that remained hidden in plain sight. A twig braving the gust of water in a storm drain, moulding leaves in the forest, birds in flight spied from a skylight, so on and so forth. There is an element of sorrow, of life going on in spite of any obstacle or event. This emotion is evident in the pictures of an abandoned headless marble statue of a man who seems to have been of significant stature. He had come across this outside the Dr Bhau Daji Lal Museum in Mumbai. “There is so much beauty in this statue and the details like the clearly visible veins,” he says. “I had to take this photograph.” He speaks of his idea of doing an installation of the fragmented images of the statue - an exceptional idea - which he didn’t execute for this show. There is a photograph of an abandoned clay head he saw at Chitrakala Parishath which looks like Pablo Picasso. He guesses it is the work of a student. There are a lot of such opportunities to wonder about the moments frozen in the images.  “Whether portrait, landscape or still life, it is all about the same question. What does the frame contain in that single moment?  That is the most important and probably the only thing. One, however, is also aware that there is life outside the frame, and that is going on uninterrupted - at that very instant.”

From a high school boy who was gifted a Click III camera in the 70s by his cousin, getting his first few pictures published in the local newspaper to developing negatives in a darkroom set up in his house and now, after forty odd years, having a solo show; Khasnis is justifiably excited with the outcome. As one who calls Raghu Rai his perennial source of inspiration, he has probably hit the gallery with all the right notes.

What: Of Silence, Solitude and Slow Time
When: Till May 9, 10.30am - 7.30pm
Where: Gallery Manora