Clutter is not a favourite word in Megha Rajeev’s vocabulary. Her idea of creativity and expression strives for clarity. That is why the engineer and photographer did not want to post her compositions on her Facebook page for the world to see, approve or like.
“I did not want to add to the clutter. Every one keeps posting pictures of all kinds of Facebook. I don’t post my frames on Facebook. Instead I have chosen 102 snaps for ‘Out of focus’, my first exhibition of photographs; most of the snaps were clicked during my travels in India. There are a few clicked by my sister, Anagha Rejeesh, and her daughter too,” says 29-year-old Megha.
Megha was exposed to photography right from a young age since parents, Rajeev Karunakaran and Mariamma Cherian, both teachers of Botany, were avid travellers and photographers. Rajeev, former of head of Botany at University College, and her mother, a scientist, used to go on trips for specimen collection and on many an occasion they were accompanied by their daughters.
“After I began working, the first thing I bought with my savings was a DSLR Nikon. Through trial and error, I learnt to compose a photograph and how to use the light to capture the right mood for my photograph,” she explains.
Her camera became her constant travelling companion and her collection of photographs is also a delightful narrative of her travels in different places such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh
Admitting that she was out of focus when it came to her career, Megha worked in the IT industry for two years before she quit to pursue her post graduation in Advertising Management and Account Planning from Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad. All the while she kept seeing the world through her camera as well and kept adding to her collection.
“My parents came to Ahmedabad when I was there and together we explored several places in Gujarat and nearby Rajasthan as well. A project work took me to an interior village in Gujarat and that proved to be a mine of new experiences and sights,” she recollects.
Her lens has captured deeply personal moments in the midst of crowds and solitude. Unusual angles and perspectives make her compositions refreshing while some are meditative in nature. The mundane turns momentous and the familiar becomes novel when a shutterbug freezes that moment in time.
“Some have long stories to tell while others are fleeting moments we shutterbugs keep an eye out for. The photographs themselves are a call to action to take a breather and look around a bit, a call to lose focus to see more,” states Megha.
And that is why the wanderer is at home in the city. She says she wants to pursue photography as a passion and not a profession. “But I want a career that lets me take off on flights of creativity when I want to lace my shoes and take off on a journey,” she says.
Megha was working with the strategic marketing team of a leading home textile manufacturer in Ludhiana. “Now I’ve decided to take a breather and return home because the call of greenery and rain from Kerala was far too strong,” she says.
Artist B.D. Dethan inaugurates the exhibition at Museum Auditorium today at 4 p.m. It is on till September 27.
