When photographers from other countries visit India, they are usually mesmerised by the vivid scenes across the country and try to splash their frames with a riot of colour from the streets. American photographer Alan Rubin, however, chose to click the streets of old Delhi in black and white as he felt that shooting in colour was a cliché. According to Rubin, to really draw out the humanistic element, he would have to remove the distraction that colour creates to allow the viewer to concentrate on the emotion of the subject being photographed. “It is almost expected for an expatiate to be fascinated by the colour in India and work towards capturing it. I have tried to capture mundane events on the streets to showcase the lives of these people,” said the American photographer on his monochrome works.
Rubin’s pictures of life on the streets of Old Delhi are on display at a group exhibition titled “Trace(s)”, which is being organised at the Galerie Romain Rolland, Alliance Francaise De Delhi. Besides Rubin, Franco-Russian photographer Ioulia Chvetsova and French photographer Marie Langlest are a part of the show that traces the travels of the three photographers who met at a social event and decided to put together an exhibition.
Chvetsova, who specialises in travel photography and has lived in Nepal, Tajikistan and India, has documented the traditions, festivals and culture she discovered along the way.
The frames on display combine images taken in India and Russia and those taken in India during the festival of Holi, apart from a monkey on a Chennai beach. The photos were pre-selected for the Sony World Photography Awards competition, “15 Photographs that will Open Your Eyes to the Wonders of the World”. Her works are the opposite of Rubin’s with the frame filled with colour completely.
Langlest’s style combines photographs as diptychs or triptychs and she presents her work as visual haiku poems. She says her images tell their own story when put together and feels that every viewer should have their own interpretation of her works. She does not share what she is trying to depict in her frames as they are personal memories associated with her travels. Langlest, who has been carrying her camera with her since 1993, has unique images taken in Budapest, Malaysia and Sri Lanka that portray lesser-known aspects of these countries.
