Solitude is a theme that runs through Rahul Ghosh’s photographs. He had moved to the UK in 2008 for education and in his spare time, having nothing else to do, began exploring the city with his camera in tow. At that time, he didn’t know about the nuances of street photography. He went about clicking images of architecture and people. The exhibition ‘Solo: Between Loneliness and Solitude’, which opens at Goethe Zentrum Hyderabad on October 12, displays images that reflect urban solitude.
A woman walking near a bridge, another walking away from him near a row of pillars and a boy featured as a speck in the backdrop of Martin Luther’s ‘I have a dream’ wall are all the many facets of solitude. “I captured these people from long distances, at least 100 metres, using a zoom lens. I was lonely myself and this manifested in the images. Over time, I realised that solitude had become a theme in many of my pictures and explored it further,” says Rahul.
Rahul Ghosh
A psychologist, he studied and worked in the UK and later in Australia. Being on his own in these countries made him observe others on their own in urban spaces. “Urban solitude is a huge phenomenon. As he began observing it and it became a project, his photography also evolved. His recent images show a closer interaction with his subjects,” observes Pratika Yashaswi, the curator of the exhibition.
In the more recent images shot in New York and Hyderabad, you see men on the streets reacting to the camera. Rahul points at a portrait of an elderly man, photographed outside the Mecca Masjid, who greeted the camera with an uninhibited, welcoming smile. Then, there’s an image of a footwear seller lost in the melee of the Sunday market in Hyderabad’s Old City.
A photograph by Rahul Ghosh
Rahul’s images on display, a selection of those shot in the UK, Paris, Sydney, Hyderabad and New York, all explore the theme of going solo. “You can be absolutely lonely in a crowd. I looked for people who stand out from the crowd. I witnessed solitude in Australia and I see it here too. If you are a student or working in a new city, if you have a group of friends there’s company. Otherwise you have an empty weekend and isolation creeps in every evening after work,” he notes.
A photograph by Rahul Ghosh
The exhibition at Goethe Zentrum Hyderabad, on till October 24, is the third edition of the photographer’s expanding series on urban solitude, a project that started seven years ago. For more on his work, check out sidewalksolo.tumblr.com
