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Dabbling with many issues

Photo: Bhagya Prakash k.

STUNTMAN SOARS Sameer Mohan: ‘If photography requires me to climb the highest mountain, I will go to any extreme

He has a dual identity. He is known as Sam Mohan professionally, and as Sameer Mohan to family and friends. “Not many people know that, and I prefer it this way,” says the 27-year-old photographer. As an 18-year-old, Sameer discovered tha t his father, in his capacity as an infantry officer travelled to un-chartered territories, and he decided to go along. He began to take photos of anything and everything. “I was born in Kerala, and have lived all over India and I realised that photography is the vocation for me.” Sameer felt that this was the only job where he could be on his own. He enrolled into the University of Sunderland, U.K. for a Masters in Photography. He sent his portfolio in fashion and contemporary art photography and was admitted for the course. It was here that Sameer’s perceptions of photography changed. “In a class taught by eminent photographers, eight months was spent focussing on the purist form of photography.” Photography became idea-based and not just visual imagery. “It was not about a beautiful image — but about an enriching experience or space.” Sameer began to look at photography completely differently.

After living in England for three years, he was fed up of its lego-land, CCTV culture and claustrophobia and returned to Bangalore. Back at home and filled with cultural experiences imbibed during his travels as a student in the U.K., it was difficult for Sameer to adapt. “It was important to create a niche and develop a different process, style and texture of photography.” It was the diversity, anarchy, freedom and smells of India that propelled the photographer’s hard drive.

Then came a time when Bangalore was affected by the upsurge of technology and “great jobs”. “Are we aware of the foreign experience — aping the globalisation culture of the influx of malls and centralisation?” But Sameer realised that while one side of Bangalore is undergoing change, there was another section that was completely untouched — which really needs change. He declares: “There is so much to explore in my own country.” Sameer has worked on architecture, lifestyle, fashion, events, food and the underprivileged.

To keep his creative side alive and to overcome the fear of burning out, he goes on a starvation diet. “It keeps me grounded.” He also captured the lives of sexually abused, trafficked women and children at the Odanadi Seva Samsthe, a rehabilitation centre in Mysore. “They are averse to men and it took some time for them and me to spend time and understand each other before I could capture their stories.”

He feels that photography as an art form is still in its natal stages in India. Sameer is working on “non-places like ATM centres, banks and airports — where people lose their identities and human interactions and are inducted by science.”

He feels that in these centres, human beings cease to become social beings and interact only with inanimate objects. When it comes to travelling, Sameer loves Arunachal Pradesh as it’s an “extreme place. It was back to basics as the place and the simplicity of the people were truly energising.”

Coming from a Purist school of photography, it was hard initially for Sameer to get used to the digitised medium in the market.

“But I realised that digital technology helps work get done much faster and one can use it to suit your aesthetics.”

“I am a junkie and into adrenalin sports. I realised that if photography requires me to climb the highest mountain, I will go to any extreme. Photography brings out the child in me.”

Because for Sameer, when it comes to getting a visual, he does not feel hunger or tiredness, only self-actualisation.

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