What international photographers and artists perceived from their experiences and time in India make an interesting study. More so, when the pictures are set in an older India, a time that the current generation will never fully remember or relate to.
Tasveer Arts — in collaboration with Italian luxury jeweller, Damiani, and in partnership with Luxure Louis Philippe — brings Derry Moore’s ‘Evening Ragas’ to India.
Derry Moore, the 12th Earl of Drogheda, is well known for his portraits of European aristocracy, including Queen Elizabeth II and the late Queen Mother. Educated at Eton, Moore went on to study painting at Oscar Kokoschka’s School of Seeing in Salzburg, Austria, and later studied photography under Bill Brandt.
In Evening Ragas, Moore initially set out to capture some of the places whose days he knew were ‘numbered’. But as he worked, he found ‘a cultural osmosis’; the influences of British and European architecture on Indian buildings, and also that of India and its climate, as well as its styles on the British. He noted grandeur and a sense of space rarely seen in Britain: higher ceilings, larger windows, wider corridors and lavish detail in even some humbler houses.
“To take most of these photographs today would be impossible; so much of India has changed beyond recognition over the past 22 years… If I were asked what I look for when I take a photograph, the answer would be surprise. When I think back to my early visits to India, I remember being in a constant state of surprise and corresponding awareness. Today I must actively seek out ‘subjects’ to a far greater extent. That said, when found, the occasions are just as exciting; it’s rather like fishing in an increasingly emptied sea,” he says.
Bottomline: Slices of an India that will never be exactly like this again.
Evening Ragas by Derry Moore
Where:The Gallery at Sua House, Bangalore.
When:Till November 30.
