It is a candid moment. A child's hand stretched out seeking alms. Her unwashed-for-days-hand seems to desperately seek sustenance from the camera, her eyes are a mix of curiosity and expectation. “It is not a pose,” says Santosh Rajendran who captured the moment. This photograph is a part of his exhibition of photographs ‘Let us all…' is on at Durbar Hall Art Gallery.
Street photography is a genre of photography which is spur of the moment, seeing a dramatic moment on the street and then freezing it. It is not about creating that perfect photograph rather it is about being able to recognize the decisive moment and then capturing it. Neither is it about fancy equipment, he used a basic Canon EOS 550 D camera. “For me photography is more a medium of creating awareness and communicating than just beautiful pictures,” says Santosh. Though most of the photographs on show are black and white, there are a few ‘beautiful' colour ones as well. He says a percentage of what he makes goes to charity. His visiting card says ‘Streetalight', which “is lighting up the street, positively to make a difference.”
Stark realities
As one steps into the gallery there are the mandatory ‘beautiful' photographs. Of a parrot's eye in extreme close-up so too a slice of papaya, a pigeon in flight, a turtle peering out of its shell, nature, landscape…there are many others and with rather prominent price stickers. There is nothing that suggests what comes next. Which is why, probably, the stark black and white photographs come as a jolt. Santosh says, “I wanted to show them [visitors] the beautiful pictures before showing them the others - reality.”
The ‘others' are peopled by those who are ‘not seen' says Santosh, the ‘not seen' are the homeless, handicapped, mendicants and of course children of homeless migrants. Hence there are shots of homeless children sleeping, playing, bathing and of course begging. With the street children there is a feeling of joy and even hope. The photographs then start, progressively, hitting harder. Since Santosh uses his photography as a means of creating awareness, his viewfinder inevitably finds the harsher aspects of life on the streets. For instance there is a handicapped woman, unable to walk, sitting in a cart and counting her earnings of the day – a few coins.
These people, caught up in the business of existence, barely notice the camera. Shot in different places in south India, they tell the same story. These black and white photographs capture the tiniest detail which could be missed in a colour photograph. The people we see wandering on the roads and in their minds, the ‘deranged' people, Santosh says, have their stories. “In Bangalore, I shot a man wandering in the streets, he spoke English with a British accent. What I gathered from him was that he studied to be a chef in London. There are many qualified people on the streets, do we even notice these people?” he asks.
He believes that a difference can be made in the lives of the people who live out their lives on the streets – the sick, the aged, the homeless and the abandoned. “Rehabilitation has to start with the children,” he says. That explains the sequence in which he has arranged the photographs. The children first then the middle aged, the sick and then the aged, presumably the dying.
The candid shots are not all bitter or harsh, life is not all harsh. There is a boy taking a ride on a push cart, like a king on his chariot or a shopkeeper yawning for all his life is worth oblivious to the camera focused on his face. There is another of a bindi wearing dog looking at the camera with boredom writ large on its face, these are the ones which make you smile and provide relief.
The exhibition concludes on January 29.
