Shooting the last leaf

Sunder Ramu describes how the sight of Fall brought him back from the brink, inspiring a whole new line of work

Around 15 years ago, actor-photographer Sunder Ramu encountered what was perhaps the darkest phase of his life. Losses, both personal and material, weighed him down heavily. “The thought scared me — that my mind could just give up,” says the ordinarily optimistic artist. “I had no idea what to do. I even stopped shooting; thought I would never shoot again.”

“I decided to get out of this place and find some space for myself,” he recalls.

And since he had a valid Schengen visa, he decided to go backpacking across Europe.

“I landed in Paris and

spent a week walking through the streets of that city,” he recalls. But the City of Love only exacerbated the sense of loss he felt at the dissolution of a 10-year-long marriage.

Then, one day, he decided to take a train to Montmartre, that hill-flanked, northern corner famous for The Basilica of the Sacre Coeur, Moulin Rouge and for being the home and muse of artists such as Van Gogh and Renoir. “I sat on a bench there. I had no thought in my head, was enjoying the blankness,” he says.

Suddenly, there was a gust of wind and he was showered by leaves, he remembers.

“I hadn’t noticed them before. But when I looked up, I realised how beautiful they were. I forgot everything,” the photographer smiles.

Watching the crumpled, brightly-hued leaves drift around, “I wondered how they were dying so beautifully. It felt like the leaves were excited about dying; death has become a celebration, almost.”

That is when this thought struck him, “I had never seen anything die as beautifully as leaves in fall; And I realised that to die a beautiful death, you have to live a beautiful life.”

Shooting and leaving

He spent the next three months backpacking across a dozen or so different countries, shooting pictures of leaves everywhere he went. “There were no selfies, no shots of architecture. Just close-ups of leaves. They were so beautiful and each of them seemed to be telling me a story,” says Ramu, who went on to spend the next 15-odd years of his life shooting more of them.

It is the poignancy of that moment, that final last sashay of the leaves, twirling towards the ground, which is captured in his fine art photography exhibit titled ‘The Last Dance of the Leaves’. First showcased at The Folly, Amethyst, every one of the 100-odd prints lining the gallery walls, were pictures of these leaves of varying species, colours, shapes and sizes: some captured mid-flight, some barely tethered to withered branches, a few interspersed with the bare bodies of anonymous women. “The minute I put clothes on a body, it gets fixed to a particular period. This way, it remains timeless like the leaves,” says Ramu, who will be showcasing smaller sets of this work again in three galleries across Chennai from April 14 to 17.

Eighteen pieces have been sold so far, in addition to a single-edition large coffee table book priced at ₹2 lakh. And he intends to take it all over the country and the world, including Bengaluru, Mumbai, Colombo, Thailand, Nepal, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan and New York, before returning to the place where it all began, Chennai.

The wall calls

It has been 25 years since Ramu shot his first professional paid shoot, but his induction into the world of form, time and light began as early as school. “I come from the Valley School in Bengaluru, so I started very young. By the time I was in Class III, I had learnt printing and framing.”

Commercial success soon followed, “I was shooting for covers of 22 magazines around India,” he says, adding he was disenchanted soon after.

“There was no respect for the art there. I thought I was being unfair to my art and the people receiving it,” says Ramu, who took a conscious decision to withdraw from the scene in 2013. He went on to convert his studio into a gallery for fine art photography, both his and other people’s. “It’s called Arkanza; it doesn’t mean anything, but it sounds like magic, doesn’t it?,” he smiles.

Another pet project of his is The Call of The Wall: a programme in which he curates the walls of your home with customised artwork. “People are scared of art because most curators make it look very intellectual. But there is nothing to understand, really. Either you like it or you don’t.” He has created 16 projects across the world so far, work

ing with home-owners to create walls that reflect their likes, tastes and personality. “When you choose the right art for the place you are going to spend most of your time in, it becomes a joy to live in. And yes, this way I am part of someone’s life and family forever.”

The Last Dance of the Leaves will be showcased from April 14-17 at Spacewise, Focus Art Gallery and Arkanza.