Photography and Visual Culture

Why There Are Not Many Homai Vyarawallas in Indian News Media? - III

2010-09-13T09:00:00.002+05:30

Let us keep Homai Vyarawalla's unique past context as well as the contemporary experiences I mentioned earlier in perspective while dealing with the question with which this three part series started: Why there are not many Vyarawallas in Indian news media?

Here is my take on the question. May be subjective and out of place. But I also strongly feel that there could be other and more stronger pointers than these for the absence of Vyarawallas in contemporary contexts.

1) Across the world, then and now, Vyarawallas are rare to find. The simple reason could be the essentially masculine character of the equipment and the person who exists as a photographer/photojournalist. Probably, cultures across the world have inadvertently inscribed in the collective psyche of the members of the two genders what is appropriate for them in terms of professional careers. The Vyarawallas and Margurite-Bourke-Whites probably were born in the contesting planes which came to question the culturally inscribed gender bias. But such a view also raises another question: are there not contemporary planes which challenge culturally inscribed gender bias?

2) Women have always been constructed as the subjects of gaze by painters and later photographers and much later by cinematographers. What becomes of the subject of gaze when women themselves work with the essentially masculine apparatus of camera? The problematic of the relationship between the subject of gaze and the subject that is gazing through the camera lens as well as the predominantly male audience of the visual materials then and now may be at work in structuring the rarity of women photojournalists/photographers in Eastern and Western worlds. As a result, we see more women on the ramps in Milan and New Delhi than camera wielding women on the sides of the ramps.

3) The widely held notion that photojournalism is a field work intensive profession probably acts as deterrent for even those women graduates in communication, who master the craft early on and show adequate passion for the medium of photography, to drop the idea of making a career in photography/photojournalism. The bosses who are in charge of news rooms also subscribe to this notion and contribute to the circulation of the myth that the medium is essentially masculine in terms of its technology, applications and practitioners.

4) A simple reexamination of the past and present photographs showing tourists carrying camera bags in important tourist places tells us that the male members of the groups or families are more likely to be in charge of holding and using the camera than their female counterparts. Even though, the number of women carrying cameras have grown exponentially after the advent of tiny digital cameras, the scenario explained above remains as dominant. Probably, the male dominated cultures require men to sport enough gadgetry to render them more masculine and more dominant than their feminine counterparts. Remember the prevailing cultural notion in many cultures in the East and West that men are techno savvy and women are not.

There could be more reasons than this, but we shall make efforts to have more Homai Vyarawallas and Margurite-Bourke-Whites to help us to relate to our political and social realities.

Why There Are Not Many Homai Vyarawallas in Indian News Media? - I

2010-09-12T23:01:00.006+05:30

Yesterday morning, I was on a brief shopping visit to Mylapore East Mada Street. What got my attention was a group of camera wielding young women taking their shots in the small lane where the Jain temple is located. They are probably students working on their photography assignments as a part of their communication programmes in a city college. All of them sported DSLRs on their necks. There are as many graduate programmes in communication in the city of Madras as there are colleges. And a majority of the students who graduate in these programmes are girls. Probably, a good percentage of them land jobs in news media as journalists. We find these days a growing balance between male and female bylines in mainstream English newspapers of the city. But I am yet to find female photojournalists hogging credit lines in news photos or among the yelling group of male photojournalists in the wells of the public auditoriums in the city. I am told that even in USA, only 15% photojournalists are women.

In 1997-1998, while working at Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Thirunelveli, myself, colleagues, Kanchanai RR Srinivasan, and nine female students ran an experiment to train women photographers for nearly a year. Eventhough, the explicit objective of the experiment was to train women photojournalists, there were other objectives which aimed to provide a plane of empowerment for both the camera wielding young women students and their subjects as well as their onlookers in a conservative rural setting. The experiment culminated in an exhibition entitled "Nizhalgalin Nigam." (The Reality of Shadows). The exhibition showcased the photographs of the women students who felt immensely transformed in their skill sets, world views and self-esteem levels. One student, Ms Krishna Priya, reached great heights when her photograph was adjudged the best in the 1998 International Journalism Competition organised by EFA UNESCO.

Today I chanced upon a news item about the ongoing exhibition of the works of India's first women photojournalist, Homai Vyarawala, now 97, at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi. Unlike the female student photographers I saw in Mylapore East Mada Street, who had sleek DSLRs, Homai was lugging cameras that weighed more than six pounds when she was covering epoch making as well as ordinary events for Indian and foreign newspapers such as Bombay Chronicle, The Illustrated Weekly of India and Life.

She was the first women photojournalist in India and probably in the non-Western world and her photographs stand testimony to the key events leading to partition and India's Independence. Her major focus was on Jawaharlal Nehru and his family. That got her several unique snapshots of Nehru's personality. One photograph on the first flight of BOAC from London to Delhi shows Nehru with a cigarette in his lips and trying to light one for the wife of Deputy British High Commissioner for India.

Why There Are Not Many Homai Vyarawallas in Indian News Media? - II

2010-09-12T20:14:00.003+05:30

Homai Vyarawalla's active career as a photojournalist spanned the period from late 1930s to late 1960s. She is the subject of a book commissioned by UNESCO's project, Parzor (The Unesco Parsi Zoroastrian Project). India in Focus: Camera Chronicles with Homai Vyarawalla, authored by Sabeena Gadihokei of Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, is a veritable mine of the visual culture of our pre-Independent and post-Independent past. It is a good source to relate to the life and times of a nation that was struggling for independence as well as a women photojournalist who had the vision and willingness to work with the medium of photography when the medium had no takers from her gender.

Her work also provides an interesting contrast to the works of Western photojournalists who were covering India, particularly celebrated women photographers like Margurite-Bourke-White. Here is an interesting snippet from her memory about her early career. "I remember my first shot as a photographer, in 1938. A group of women from the women's club in Bombay had gone for a picnic party and I photographed them. My first published pictures were in the Bombay Chronicle - a whole range of pictures, for which I was paid one rupee in cash for each."

Homai was attracted to the passion of photography by what her boyfriend, later husband, Manekshaw, practiced as a photojournalist. She withdrew from her active life in 1968 when her husband passed away. She was in news last year for selling her 55 year old imported Fiat and buying the Nano as its celebrated first customer.

Homai was recently honoured with a life time achievement award along with three other eminent photographers (S.Paul, Chief Photographer, Indian Express, 1962-1988; Benu Sen, a veteran of many hues in Indian photography circles, winner of the best pictorialist award from Camera World International; and K G Maheshwari, the well known portrait photographer of Mumbai) by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of Govt. of India.

Homai's works are on display since August 27 until October 31, 2010 at the National Galllery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi. "The collection of about 200 images is interesting because it showcases the entire ethos of the country. It has social, anthropological and historical value. We are celebrating the life of an artist as well as acquainting modern viewers with the visual culture of the past," said Rajeev Lochan, Director, NGMA, in an interview. Her entire corpus of available photos and negatives total 90000 and are presently looked after by the Alkazai Foundation, New Delhi.

Surveillance of Public Spaces: The Great CCTV Rush and the Jadavpur Lessons

2010-09-11T21:18:00.001+05:30

This week saw one of the first organised protests against the great CCTV rush that has been silently gaining momentum for the past few years in the wake of post-9/11 security concerns and the post-Mumbai blasts.

We all know that privacy and civil liberties issues never had their vocal proponents in India for the simple reason that Indian cultural mores have never accorded these issues the same sanctity and significance Western cultural environment affords. Privacy laws are non-existent and civil liberties are precariously tied to the unhealthy relationship between powerful state apparatuses and nascent civil society formations, even though Indian constitution has a very laudable section on fundamental rights.

One glaring example of the violation of privacy rights of ordinary Indians is in the nature of coverage accorded to victims of different kinds by Indian media. Just as we as Indians do not respect the privacy of our fellow citizens in public spaces, those of our ilk who are working as reporters and sub-editors in news media also do not have any concern for the privacy of the living or dead subjects in their stories. To them anything goes in the making of the story, even if the photographs show the gory details of the dead accident victims or the blood splattered bodies of victims of domestic, communal or other kinds of violence in close up and extreme close up shots.

Think of the fact that the media in USA did not show the bodies of the victims in the twin tower blasts. Think of the fact that scores of dead children's privacy were willingly violated by Indian media during their coverage of 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Think of the fact that thousands of crime victims' photos are freely circulated with the cooperation of the law enforcement agencies by Indian media in concocting stories that have serious implications not only for the immediate privacy related concerns of the individuals in question, but also their long term social lives.

In this context, the growing tendency on the part of the authorities of the state to employ surveillance tools such as CCTV cameras in public spaces calls for closer scrutiny of the nexus between the forces of globalisation and the post-9/11 formations of social surveillance by state agencies.

There is no denying that there is a stronger need to put in place effective surveillance of spaces in which publics move in large number such as airports, railway stations, busy thoroughfares and key government/public offices etc., But what becomes glaring and seen as questionable, as the Jadavpur University students are arguing is the relevance of $42200 worth plan to install CCTV cameras in a campus filled with students and teachers. “This is a clear infringement of our freedoms. We are not terrorists,” said one student leader. More than the concerns of privacy violations, what adds fuel to the fire such protests are stoking is the lack of priorities authorities have in our country. We are fond of marshaling technologies to provide us a false sense of superiority as a nation or a misplaced sense of social control when the ground realities call into serious questions our lack of priorities. According to student protesters at Jadavpur University, when the campus lacks the essentials such as good food, potable water and other facilities students need, where is the need for surveillance cameras. "Why installation of cameras has gained priority when the hostel facilities, toilets and bathrooms need attention first in this centre of excellence university,'' asked a student.

There are shades of other undercurrents in the Jadavpur controversy as well. The campus has generally been perceived pro-left and the recent appearance of a pro-Maoist leader and an ex-JU student, Ms Debolina Ghosh in a meeting inside the campus is seen as the agent provocateur.

Traditional and transitional societies such as ours have a greater predilection for running amok in the face of the growing and complex webs of implications flowing from globalisation and international and intranational security concerns without a clear understanding of the various histories of the surveillance and disciplinary societies and what failed them.

There is a need for a civil-liberties and privacy rights sensitive surveillance policy of state institutions in India and not a technologically driven, insensitive and callous approach that calls into question the democractic and civil liberties moorings of world's largest democracy. The current approach which relies on trying to ban the thing that is perceived as a threat such as a mobile phone (remember the infamous Anna University ban on mobile phones in 2005?) or a blackberry or going in for heightened monitoring of the subjects who are seen as deviant (such as the students of Jadavpur students for being pro-left and pro-Maoist) misses the trees for woods as any other approach that governed the functioning of earlier control and disciplinary societies as narrated by Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze in their works.

Looking UP with Trees in Japan

2010-09-11T00:52:00.003+05:30

July is not the right time to look up with trees in Japan. Among other things, the famous Sakura blossoms would be missing in July. Nonetheless, I did look up with trees during my recent visit in July 2010. Here are the pics.

National 35 Sprinty BC:"The Made In India" Camera

2010-09-08T21:55:00.009+05:30

The nation that prides itself as the next superpower and claims to be always third,second or first country to put rockets, satellites of several denominations in space is also a nation that was/is incapable of producing a low tech item such as a 35 mm camera. Its closest attempt in getting a "Made in India" camera was enacted during mid 1970s in a CSIR facility, National Instruments, at Calcutta. The camera sports the tag, National 35 Sprinty BC. It retailed for Rs 780 in 1977. The issues of India Today and Sunday carried the advertisements for the camera in their late 1970s issues.

I longed for owning a one, but could not lay my hands on one as it was seen expensive by me as I was a college student and not earning. I came to acquire many SLRs later years, but was still longing to lay my hands on National 35 Sprinty BC, hereafter NSP SBC. But it was not to be spotted in camera shops or even shops selling old items in Moore Market area in Chennai.

I had a double bonanza last weekend after my short tour around the lanes of Moore Market area. During the first round, I missed the NSP SBC. On closer scrutiny of the items in one shop, the NSP SBC was spotted lying in a heap of rusted metal curios, obviously longing for a good hand to pick it up to a loving home.

I settled for a deal at Rs.300, even though the seller was demanding Rs.500. I checked the NSP SBC's innards,levers and lens. For what I paid and the years I waited, it seemed a steal and more superior in my impressions than ISRO's IRSes and Kalam's SLVs.

On the way home, another classic, Yashica Electro 35 G caught my attention and I settled for a deal at Rs.500 when the seller was expecting Rs.1000. Yashica lovers know the value of G series that sold like hot cakes during 1960s and 1970s for what it pioneered in a popular consumer camera series: electronics inside a camera at an affordable price. The model I bought weighed like a Vijayantha tank and was in pristine condition.

The two cameras I held in my hands also proved our technological backwardness during the not so distant past of 1970s. The Yashica Electro 35 G I bought nearly thirty years after its manufacture still looks and handles like a Merc. The Regula Sprinty BC-turned-National Sprinty BC looks and handles like an Amby, notwithstanding the nostalgic memories both Amby and NSP SBC kindle in us.

The NSP SBC like many of our "Made in India" was actually made in Germany as Regula Sprinty BC by a not so well known German camera manufacturer, King KG. When King KG found the going tough during the 1970s in its camera business, it was slowly losing interest in camera manufacturing. In 1977, the designs, tool kits and all the necessary infrastructure to produce NSP SBC was bought by National Instruments, Calcutta. There are no figures about how many units National Instruments manufactured and sold. But interesting insights into India's only attempt at camera manufacturing emerge in a project by two independent photographers, Manas Bhattacharya and Madhuban Mitra. Their project documents a surreal glimpse of the decaying assembly lines of National Instruments. It is a project as surreal as it is ironic as the subject of the photographic project is the innards of camera manufacturing factory.

Next time when ISRO, Indian media or some political biggie makes a loud noise about the emerging super power's technological achievements, laugh loudly and sulk deeply while holding a "Made in India" item that was designed, tooled and sold by a foreign company, but found its way to India as India's own just as the NSP SBC.

The Social Practice of Wedding Photography

2009-09-20T11:18:00.007+05:30

As expected, Frank Heidemann's lecture on the "Photographic Processes and Artefacts," hosted by the Dept.of Mass Media and Communication Studies, University of Madras, on 18 09 2009, evoked a very good response. A good number of senior professors (from disparate disciplines such as philosophy, history, statistics and public affairs) along with students in Journalism and Communication, Electronic media and other courses attended the first session of the Media and Society Seminar Series and enjoyed the lucid presentation of Prof.Frank Heidemann. Prof.Steve Hughes, SOAS, University of London, whose work on early Tamil cinema audience is well known, was also in the audience.

After making clear how photographic processes and their artefacts emerge (with the five splendid visual examples shown by him), Frank moved on to the Q&A session with a thought provoking observation on the social status of wedding photographer in India and the implications of the social practices the wedding photographers enact in violation of accepted Western cultural codes of privacy, public behaviour and, more importantly, what is expected of a service provider like a photographer in a social function like wedding.

I could not have waited for a more opportune moment to talk about the social practice of photography in particular and wedding photography in general, drawing on the thoughts lurking in my mind. I could not answer Frank in a direct manner as I wanted to provide more fodder to the students in the audience to come to terms with taken for granted photographic brands like Konica and their implications in the social practice of wedding photography in India during the 1980s and 1990s. Konica became an entrenched brand during this period, thanks to the colours and contrasts it afforded for the Indian wedding photographers to fill their albums with saturated overtones of Indian green and red, which probably Kodak lacked and Fuji could never cater to.

In my opinion, the social practices of wedding photography (and other kinds of photography) are determined by the cultural sanctions wielded by the performers of rituals to subject the supposed benefactors of rituals to any kind of performative demands. The Western social codes of privacy and the normative client-service provider relationship do not count here. What counts is the willingness of the benefactors of rituals to submit to the authoritative demands of the performers of rituals.

In the fragmented spaces of the wedding halls in Tamil Nadu, two sites remain as evocative witnesses to the above mentioned. The ornamental canopy under which the bride and the bride groom take their vows and complete the rituals required to become husband and wife is a supposedly sacred site. This is sacred for religious and non-religious reasons. Among the non-religious ones, what comes to my mind as very important is its spatial significance on account of its nature to allow the projections of various gazes. This is a site where the unauthoritative public gaze is projected on to the gaze of the couple, which becomes a willing collaborator to the authoritative twin gazes of the priest and the photographer, along with the supervising gazes of close family members.

This site is spatially bounded by the four pillars that hold the canopy. This site is also spatially separated from the site where the audience is seated in rows of plastic chairs. Between these two sites, there is a site which is liminal and does not have any boundaries. This site is located simultaneously inside the sacred space where the couple is seated and inside the larger site of the hall where the audience is seated.

This site is more akin to the ruptured boundaries of India's wildlife reserves where the wild animals and human beings make frequent crossings in to each other's territory. This is the site of the Indian wedding photographer. He seeks to roam like a wild tiger or wild elephant simultaneously in what is not his territory and what is his territory. The deep incursions by the humans at the peripheries of India's wildlife reserves have created a liminal site which seems to belong to both, from their respective viewpoints and behaviour. But if one goes by the wisdom of logic, the site of a wild life reserve can only belong to wild animals and not human being, however greedy they are, if the wildlife wardens and their bosses in governments pull up their socks and put a stop to the emergence of a contentious liminal site.

This analogy becomes instructive once we appreciate the dissimilarities between the liminal site of the wedding photographer and the liminal site at the peripheries of wild life reserves. The former is a culturally evolved and accepted co-creation of the wedding photographers and their benefactors, the families of the bride and bridegroom on the dais. Here the wedding photographers act as the performers of the ritual of wedding photography and the families of bride and bridegroom act as the benefactors and co-performers. The ritual of wedding photography ought to be seen as a once-in-a-life time ritual for the couple. This ritual is also emblematic of the liminal site where the public gaze of the audience intersect the collective gaze of close relatives in a manner structured by the authoritative and supervising gaze of the wedding photographer. The gaze of the couple is more a disempowered one, notwithstanding the happy moments the couple are made to project to lens of the authoritative gaze.

Contrast this liminal site and its authoritative and helpless co-performers with a concrete, sacred and well bounded site where the religious rituals of the wedding are enacted under the decorated canopy. Here again, we have the rituals, their performers and co-performers. The rituals are demanding because the priest in the performer seeks to be demanding and wields an authoritative gaze which is meant to direct the gazes of the couple and their family members. The priest is no different from the wedding photographer who commands and disciplines the subjects of his gaze. He does not move from his strategic location, on the right side of the couple. Like a wild animal who knows that its territory is intact, he stays within his territory. But the wedding photographer behaves more like a wild animal that seeks to survive on the edges of liminal territories. He moves, back and forth, sideways and sometimes projects through the crowded bodies on the dais in a manner he deems fit, without evoking any protests or murmurs. He can not evoke any murmurs or protests because he exists like his counterpart, the priest, as the performers of two key rituals in any Tamil Nadu/Indian wedding. The priest and the photographer are as essential to the wedding as the couple. The rights of the performers of rituals can be allowed to supercede the rights of the benefactors of the rituals, because there is a need to relive rituals and ritualising in the fading and dusty albums/videos of the wedding couple who have been blessed to live longer and together!!!

The culturally and socially evolving practice of wedding photography also seeks to live longer and stronger by spilling its implications onto other planes such as news and event photography in India. When we look at the strange behaviour of photojournalists and event photographers in public spaces, one stumbles for the right words to describe their unethical and abominable antics in performing their rituals. They usually yell, command and eventually emerge victorious in getting their subjects on the dais to do whatever they are commanded to do. It is a common scene in public spaces where the photographers from the local and national newspapers miss no opportunity to command their subjects, however low or mighty they might be, in the process of getting their well posing subjects doing their own rituals (cutting ribbons, releasing books etc.,) on the dais. The news photographers are only reenacting and reliving the ordinary wedding photographers in their own culturally determined (or depraved?) sites.

Looking down with the Leaves

2009-09-20T10:47:00.003+05:30

It is interesting to know that Isler Adams attempted in his sidewalks project what fascinates me whenever I look up with trees, with my camera. He brings alive, albeit in a deceitful manner, the fragments of reality that live in New York sidewalks. The fragments are made to come alive as self-contained bits of a larger living whole, the sidewalks of New York. His anchoring of his images through the fallen leaves have to be juxtaposed with my contexts where the leaves are still clinging to their trees and are yet to break away as fragments.

Here is Isler Adams work. http://islerphoto.zenfolio.com/p143852560/

Remembering Willy Ronis

2009-09-20T10:15:00.007+05:30

Willy Ronis, the famous post-war French photographer died last week (Aug.14 1910 - Sept.12,2009).Known for his remarkable respect for the subjects he captured in black and white on the streets of Paris, Willy Ronis compositions evoke strongly the emotive subtleties of everyday moments. Among the numerous quotes attributed to Willy Ronis, I like this: "I never took a mean photo. I never wanted to make people look ridiculous. I always had a lot of respect for the people I photographed." (AP interview 2005).

I wish photographers and photojournalists in India understand the import of this quote.

University of Madras Hosts Frank Heidemann's Lecture on "Photographic Processes and Artefacts"

2009-09-17T22:35:00.006+05:30

Visual anthropologists use photography as a research tool in their ethnographic field visits and for documenting their ethnographic subjects. India is a veritable mine for visual anthropologists who wish to study the visual literacies of Indians of different denominations. The mind boggling number of divisions along religious,linguistic,casteist,economic,racial and ethnic lines calls for a marching army of Colliers to enquire, understand and map the visual literacies of Indians. As I mentioned in my previous post, we have a long way to go in visual anthropology in the Indian context. But I do hope that in the coming years, at least a few of our research students in Communication, Sociology and Anthropology would take to visual anthropology as a serious research pursuit. Hopefully, they should be working overtime in filling the great void in visual anthropological studies in India.

In this context, it is very appropriate to have Professor Frank Heidemann for the first session of the Media and Society Seminar Series (MSSS), organised by the Dept.of Mass Media and Communication Studies, University of Madras, on 18 09 2009. The invite for the seminar (above) is an indirect testimony to the unexplored visual anthropological wealth of India.

Where are the Colliers in India?

2009-09-17T09:45:00.002+05:30

India is what it is touted to be in government of India's tourist ads, incredible!!!. In more ways than one. It is incredible for the visual treasures and experiences it beckons any domestic and international traveller and also the odds it showers on them through its government agencies. I have already written about this particular downside of incredible India in my earlier post.

There are other serious disadvantages, particularly for researchers and academics who are interested in taking cultural, sociological and visual anthropological approaches to the study of the billion+ visual subjects and their countless billions of visual contexts.

One serious disadvantage is the inability of the Indian academia to accord the rightful dues to the fields of visual cultural studies, visual sociology and visual anthropology. We, however, have the dubious distinction of having the largest number of programmes, particularly in the state of Tamil Nadu, in visual communication, which have mushroomed, proliferated and spread like any other seasonal and trade-inspired academic programmes in India. The visual communication programmes are what typifies the birth, proliferation and eventual distortion of their semiotic and semantic planes of the words and their particular assemblages that constitute the peculiarly Indian kind of commodity fetishism in Indian higher education. In this context, the evolution of the BSc and MSc visual communication programmes and the countless number of courses focussed on the exploitation of the aspirations of the subjects and objects of information technology sector in general and the call centre sector in particular share a lot of features of commodity fetishism of the higher education kind. These courses are serving the function of any subject-object relationships in a typical process of commodity fetishism where there are no losers and both the subjects and objects are portrayed as winners.

The assemblages of visual communication, electronic media, computer science and information technology, hence, have to be read as entities that have no native elements that can do justice to the spirit of the words that constitute such assemblages of commodity fetishism and their cultural,sociological, communication and anthropological contexts of the students, teachers, communities and the larger visual landscape and culture of India/Tamil Nadu. Semiotically, these assemblages are empty signifiers (of the meanings they fail to connote and denote).

Now, let us focus on the question of the heading of the post: "Where are the Colliers in India? To the uninitiated, Colliers represent a family of scholars who rejuvenated the fields of visual anthropology as we understand it today. John Colier jr. and his famous son Malcolm Collier have helped visual anthropology and the scores of its practitioners through their nearly four decades long work of painstaking and absolutely awesome research studies of native Indians. For whatever the fields of visual sociology, visual cultural studies and visual anthropology represents today in terms of methodological, conceptual and theoretical directions, we owe it to the classical work of John Collier, Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method, first published in 1967. Among the several works of Colliers, the following are noteworthy.

i.Collier, Jr., John and Malcolm Collier. 1986. The Challenge of Observation and the Nature of Photography. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

ii) Collier, Jr., John and Malcolm Collier. 1986. Orientation and Rapport. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

iii)Collier, Jr., John and Malcolm Collier. 1986. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

John Collier jr. and his son Malcom made known one of the splendid guiding posts of visual anthropology - The subjects of visual analysis are more visuallly literate and astute than the supposedly visually literate, academically high-brow and culturally superior individuals who seek to act as participant observers of ethnographic field studies that focus on photography as a site of ethnographic documentation and analysis.

There are Colliers among Indians too, probably. But they can be unleashed only by going beyond the empty signifiers (visual communication) that exist as academic programmes with the mask of the commodity fetishism and media trade induced implications in humanities and social sciences.

Look UP with trees in Malaysia

2009-08-25T19:45:00.011+05:30

Two photos taken with Kodak CX 6330 (looks aged and bulky by today's slim cameras, but captures vividly green and red colours in nature) in Penang Botanical Garden during May 2008.

Learn to love good compositions

2008-03-21T20:35:00.005+05:30

One good way to learn the art of composition is to endear ourselves to a bunch of inspiring images. These images need not be classic works of photography. Any image counts here. Images of living and non-living things count equally. Images of the past and present are not to be discriminated. What one saw in the past as one drove through a beautiful countryside or whatever comes back strongly as memories of the past defined by our childhood can also serve up inspiring images. These are images which are out of bounds for others as they are our mental compositions of our earlier journeys. Similarly, what got etched in the imagination of our ancestors centuries of years ago and reflected in their stone tablets, potteries and cave walls can also provide valuable clues. Here is an example from the times of Mohenjadaro civilization (2000BC).

If one seeks to master the art of fluid movement in composition, one need not go further than this composition which brings out lucidly the power of fluid movement. The composition etched on stone tablet depicts a scene of a bull fighting event. One can also learn appreciable clues about the magic of fluid movement from the brilliant compositions of Leni Riefenstahl, notwithstanding the unworthy collaboration she had during the Nazi regime.

Looking ahead with trees and people in UP

2008-03-21T20:16:00.011+05:30

University of Philippines, Diliman campus, comes alive every morning when walkers, hawkers and birds breathe new dimensions of meaning to the intersections of horizons tress and their very pedestrian and lifeless counterparts (metalled roads)seek to create.

Look up with trees in UP

2008-03-21T19:44:00.015+05:30

University of Philippines, affectionately and proudly known as U.P by the citizens of Philippines, has several campuses across Philippines. The Diliman campus is spread over hundreds of hectares of wooded lands. Here is a small glimpse of the beauty of looking up with tree tops in U.P, Diliman, with Kodak CX6330(April.2007).

Bloodied Ethics and Misadventures in Photojournalism

2007-08-29T22:50:00.000+05:30

Like many other Indian institutions, Indian media are yet to recognize that there is something called privacy and the same shall be respected as the right of both the living and dead. Last few days saw Indian media touching another nadir.The privacy of the living and dead victims of the bomb blasts in Hyderabad were violated by the senseless and unprofessional acts of The Hindu and The Deccan Chronicle. The two dailies splashed pictures of two mothers grieving over the bodies of their young daughters. In the case of The Hindu, its foray into unethical photojournalism was made much worse by slotting the picture on a scale befitting the overarching bleeds in the tabloids of UK. These pictures would have certainly traumatized scores of readers as much as the families of the victims and, in particular, the mothers in the pictures, if they had also, unfortunately, chanced upon the pictures that were parading their personal emotions and private moments of mourning in public. Such misadventures in photojournalism can not be condoned as they add a multiplier effect to the tragedies that strike terror victims and their families.In the present round of misadventures, what is also evident is the spiralling effect of the culture of bloodied ethics Tamil newspapers and magazines have honed for decades under the damning and often condescending views of their elitist cousins (English newspapers)in Tamil Nadu.

During the last few days, the Indian news channels were also running like headless chicken (to paraphrase Ronen Sen's infamous remark) with their coverage of the inhuman act perpetrated by the police and public on a chain snatcher in Bihar. The endless looping of the footage by CNN IBN and other channels, showing a cop's bike dragging the bare chested chain snatcher, with his face down on the gravel of the road, is more heinous than crime committed by the cops themselves.

With every passing day, ethics and fairness in media are bloodied as much as the scores of victims who are being victimised by sources ranging from terrorists, antisocial elements and even law enforcement agencies. This is not surprising in a country where ethics and fairness rule the roost only in the speeches of the editors and veteran journalists, but rarely get their dues in the air time and news columns of media.

Camera Phone Scandals: Individual Depravity Vs Institutionalised Depravity?

2007-08-09T17:57:00.000+05:30

Another cameraphone scandal has hit the society that has already been made panicky about the "dangers" of the "little satans" in our palms by the scare stories in Tamil Press. What is doing rounds this week in Tamil press is the supposedly no-holds barred coverage of the blackmail scandal involving a less known Tamil film actress (Padmavathy), her client (a local businessman), collaborators and their camera phones. According to news reports, the actress planted the camera phones in the room where they stayed and later threatened the businessman with the pictures for extracting money.

More than the scandal what interests magazines like Nakeeran and Junior Vikatan is the potential the story provides them to indulge in soft pornography by carrying lurid pictures of the businessman and the actress in compromising postures. The depravity of these magazines are at one level no different from that of the actress. And the intent of these magazines seems more vicious than that of the actress who sought to blackmail using camera phone pictures. The praxis of exploitation only grows menacingly when the functions of the depraved individuals are extended through the institutionalised process of depravity Tamil newspapers and magazines have cultivated over the years.

Anything new attracts "beware" notices from the self-styled moral guardians of Tamil press. It seems to be a classic case of devil talking about humanism to humans. A random sample of Tamil magazines and newspapers conveys one message: "technology is bad, new technologies are scandalous, our society is brimming with criminals and corrupt individuals, but members of the Tamil press are the last vestiges of righteousness in Tamil society".

Their stories repeatedly drive home the message that new technologies are embodiments of moral threats and they are the only whistle blowers around to take care of public interest. To them, call centres are dens of vices. Camera phones are "satans in our palms" But the soft pornography reeking out of their voyeristic texts and pictures are socially responsible whistle blowers.

As the likes of Junior Vikatan and Nakeeran seek to expose the darker sides of both new technologies and their depraved users what is at work is more than an old game of exploitation and mass deception by the media. The name of the game is not just another kind of media moral panic, but a rejigged tool of what Adorno called as mass deception. More on this later (sooner?) when the "little satans" once again become the favourite whipping boys for the big satans masquerading as self-styled moral guardians in another scandal.

Cinema and Photography: Influencing Each Other?

2007-06-10T11:50:00.003+05:30

It is a well known fact that the art of photography predates the art of cinema by several decades. It is also a well known fact that cinematography evolved from the art of photography. But it is not known to many that the art of photography has also been impacted greatly by the art of cinematography. Many photographers have been inspired by their favourite films and film masters. There is an exposition of the works of ten Magnum photographers who picked their lessons from cinema at the Cinematheque Francaise.

For a snappy grasp of the influence of the cinema image on the psyche and the reality the photographer seeks to see in the photographic image, the works of Jalais Abbas, the Iran-born photographer with Magnum, are a good way to start. In the example given at the exposition, the politically surcharged street scene of Tehran in 1979 (photo 2)bears a strong imprint of an image from Roberto Roselleni's 1946 film Paisa. (photo 1)

There is a clue for us in the Cinematheque Francaise exposition to explore and map the relationships between the images of Indian photography and Indian cinemas. Possible? hmmmmm.

The Ugly Digital Banner Landscape

2007-06-03T22:41:00.000+05:30

Akin to the media scenario where bloodied ethics make no news, our public spaces are also marred by the advent of the ugly 'digital' banner landscape. What is 'digital' about their material or reception conditions is yet to be explained or related to. Public display of printed posters was once the exclusive domain of two sectors, the film industry and the political parties. Walls were sought to be booked by political parties months before elections and they were plastered with film posters on a weekly basis by exhibitors. One could see in such posters only the images of political big wigs and film actors. Now the ugly advent of 'digital' banner has democratised such a public sphere to an extent where every citizen' s face is made to show up in some street corner at some point of time or other in villages, towns and cities. The narcissistic potential of the ugly digital banner landscape is very likely to be its element of staying power until a more democratic and uglier narcissistic landscape emerges for the users of 'digital' banners.

Bloodied Ethics

2007-06-03T22:05:00.000+05:30

Despite all the self-flattery about the 'merits' of Indian media, the darker dimensions of the daily routines of Indian media are too stomach churning to be ignored. One stomach churning dimension concerns the Indian media's penchant for exhibiting bloodied, butchered, mutilated dead bodies in the guise of narrating accidents, murders, massacres and bomb blasts. Respect for privacy of the living and dead are given a daily burial with every picture of a mutilated and murdered Indian even as the Indian media ceaselessely talk about the merits of economic liberalisation and the advent of social values defined by Western modernity. The victims of 9/11 were not subjected to secondary victimisation by the U.S news media. Indian media would have subjected such victims to ceaseless victimisation by showing them in all gory details. Professional photojournalism is still a non-starter in India for several reasons. The lack of an ethical framework coupled with the deep rooted ethos of Indian media to go overboard in its coverage of the subjects and stories are but a few of the reasons. Very few media organisations are professional enough to see the privacy and other implications of carrying gruesome pictures of stories and people in the stories. The problem also lies in treating stories in the very literal sense. Stories ought to be stories and they can not become newsworthy if they are not fictionalised. For instance, fictionalising news stories is an invented art in the case of Tamil newspapers and magazines. I am not sure whether it is the same case with other vernacular newspapers. It is quite likely.

Look UP (with trees) in S Korea

2007-06-03T12:13:00.001+05:30

Gazing at the canopy of tree tops becomes more interesting in any country. These are some familiar views I got with my Kodak CX6330 during the last week of October 2006 in Nami Islands, Gwangju, S Korea.

History of Photography in India

2007-05-26T11:44:00.001+05:30

While coming to terms with the reasons why India missed the photography revolution despite having an early start by Indian pioneers way back in 1855, we must not put the blame only on the factors thrown in by the government, but also the dearth of pioneering streak among Indians in the post-independence period. For a good introduction to the early years of Indian photography go through the feature at http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa110303a.htm

"Photography Strictly Not Allowed":Incredible India? II

2007-05-26T10:43:00.000+05:30

I was told many times in temples that photographing humans reduces their lives just as they have an effect on gods. This may sound as superstition at its worst. But a plausible pointer I could glean was from other commonly held reason that photography is not allowed inside temples to prevent strangers with a commercial motive to make a business out of whatever they have shot of gods and temples. This reason seems understandable as many temples have sales outlets for selling the pictures and other souvenirs. If everyone is going to have their gods in their memory cards, gods can not exist as souvenirs and temples can not violate their own notices ("photography strictly not allowed").

If one goes by the first reason that photography is bad for humans and gods, we should not be making any exception. The message that "photography is strictly prohibited" should hold good for temple managements as well. When that is not the case, what defies logic is the sale of photographs of gods and temples in sales outlets inside the temples. What defies logic is also another theory that photography is a source of pollution and can not be allowed in any sacred place. Here we are getting closer to Walter Benjamin's (1936) concept of 'aura.' The age of mechanical reproduction is also the age of low moments for objects with 'aura.' 'Aura' is said to be native to gods and godesses and their sacred locations. On the one hand, messages such as "photography strictly prohibited" are Benjaminian in so far as their unstated reasons for prohibiting photography of sacred objects and their 'aura.' On the other hand, such messages are testimony to the right of the privileged few to indulge in what is sought to be denied for others - the right to mechanically reproduce objects that exude 'aura'. When the mechanical reproduction of 'aura' is the mainstay of the Indian calender art industry and concommittantly the religious public sphere, what becomes of the notions against photography as a pollutant, disruptive practice and a threat to the life spans of humans and gods is anybody's guess.

Let's Kodak

2007-05-25T20:51:00.000+05:30

To" kodak" is to take picture in Philippines. To "xerox" is to photocopy in India. To "cellotape" is to stick something with a glued tape in India. There could be many such examples in other contexts. Not many brands have managed to define the generic functions of their/rivals' products as 'xerox,' 'kodak' and 'cellotape' have. We do not 'sony' when we use a walkman nor do we 'fuji' when we use a film or camera. When Filippinos "kodak" and Indians "xerox," every act of theirs stand testimony to the power of not just the famous brands, but their power to define the generic functions of their products and the activities they engender across different cultural contexts. Why we must think about the role of cultural contexts here. Because Indians can not "kodak" and Filippinos can not "xerox."

"Photography Strictly Not Allowed":Incredible India?

2007-05-25T20:25:00.000+05:30

You are unwelcome with your cameras in most tourist places and temple sites in India, if you are not willing to fork out a tidy sum or leave the cameras with the guards at the entry or resist the temptation of capturing what is forbidden.

You would be in for a shock at ASI (Archaeological Survey of India) sites and national parks like the Eravikulam National Park in Kerla. In these places you will be expected to pay an exorbitant sum for carrying along your cameras and friends from abroad, who are more shocked than the locals on seeing a discriminatory tariff structure for foreigners and Indians. If your friend is from Nepal or Bangladesh, they still need to pay what your wealthier frineds from Australia or USA would be forking out at these places. Probably those who worked up these anti-tourist schemes mistakenly thought that the GDP of Nepal is no different from that of USA.

During my trips abroad, I have not been discriminated for being a foreigner in tourist places or protected monument sites nor for carrying/using cameras. It is understandable, if we come across signs prohibiting photography inside the innards of temples and monuments. But to levy a tidy sum on camera users for capturing the outside views of ASI monuments and discriminating foreign tourists from locals in terms of entry fee puts a dampner on those who wish to relate to the incredible india slogan in a postive manner.

The Cultural Politics of Tamil Cinema

2007-03-29T09:29:00.000+05:30

The cultural politics of Tamil cinema http://subalterncinema.com/ravi provides an interesting plane to come to terms with the politics of frames and bytes, both historically and in the contemporary sense. I think there is likely to be a synergy between my posts in these two different and yet metathematically similar blogs. Hope to achieve the required synergy levels in the coming posts.

Photography Revolution: How India Missed It?

2007-03-29T08:58:00.000+05:30

During the good part of last century, besides professionals and enthusiasts, India could not boast of comman men as photographers. The sale of even amateur camera models was abysmal for several decades for the simple reason that they were beyond the reach many Indians. The SLRs were unthinkable as they were too pricey and scarce on the shelves of legal photo goods vendors. Both amateur and SLRs were either sourced from grey markets, second sales or foreign trips. The government saw to it that cameras did not reach the comman men by its regime of tax excesses. We had only one Indian film brand, Indu, from Hindustan Photo Films,Ooty, that to catering to the b/w segment. But people also had other choices. Orwo for b/w photography and Agfa and Kodak for colour photography.

When Konica entered India during early 1980s to sell films to the mass market, which did not exist, we saw the slow sporouting of colour labs here and there. I remember the days during early 1980s when I had to go to the head office of Kodak in Chennai to process the color films. The other place which I started using was again 7 kms from my home. It was Murthy's color lab, near Anna Statue. There was GK Vale and Co on Mount Road, which specialised in studio photography. Taking studio portraits were seen as life time experiences. Some call it as achievements. As a child, I was made familiar to my ancestors and my parents younger days through the studio photos taken at Vaman's at Chetpet.

The entry of Konica changed all that. Its films came as a boon not only to the budding photo enthusiasts, but also to the wedding photographers, who simply fell in for the advantages Konica films offered in terms of its colour biases (in favour of the colourful Indian weddings) such as an overt green tone. Konica films were available for Rs 130 to begin with and Kodak was too pricey at 150. After some years, Konica came down to the 100 range and Kodak was selling at 120. Only during late 1990s, Konica films broke the 100 barrier and started selling for 90/80. During the period, we saw the exit of Agfa and Orwo and the death of Indu. If you wanted to buy transparency film (chrome film), you had to really hunt for it and prices were in the range of 200-300. Fuji came much later to the Indian scene and has not made a visible presence yet.

But what's the fun in having affordable film brands and unaffordable and difficult to get camera brands? Cameras were still pricey and even those who were willing fork out a tidy sum had to face the hassles of sourcing the right ones from the greymarket vendors in Burma Bazaar. Photo shops were only fond of selling the low end cameras of Kodak and a 110 mm format camera distributed by Photophone India called Hotshot during the 1980s and 1990s.

During early 2000s, digital camera were slowing showing their presence in the palms of photo enthusiasts, but were still beyond the reach of many of them. The photographers in comman men could not think about even seeing one. It took nearly five years thereafter to see them in good numbers on display in many photo stores in Chennai. But still they were more expensive than grey market ones and foreign ones. Only during 2006, prices of digital cameras and their availability were proving to be good for the middle class. Remember, even now the man on the street can not but be the subject before cameras. He can not own. His income levels do not justify one. His desire to be a photographer or photo enthusiast is still a desire and would take several more years of India's economic development to see the light of the day or the light of the flash.

But he is slowly getting the taste of photography through the short cut route provided by the cheaper camera phones. For the photographers who were lurking silently in comman men, camera phones appear to compensate for what has been missed all these years and decades. For many Indians, their tryst with photography begins only now in 2007, roughly 150 years after the invention of photography and a good 75 years after the introduction of compact cameras for individual users.

But the relationship of the comman men with camera phones is also seen as a dangerous liaison with a technology that is prone to misuse in the hands of delinquents and perverts, particularly in a society where sexualities are repressed and privacy literacy is unheard of even among educated Indians. Moral panics built around camera phones are inevitably on the rise. Media and authorities are only too good at scaring away people from new technologies. Calls for bans in public places and educational institutions are growing in tune with growing reports of misuse of camera phones by students. Remember the infamous Delhi Public School MMS stories of late 2004.

The Revolution of Photography: Another Missed Opportunity for India?

2006-12-03T22:10:00.000+05:30

Development economists and historians in India would tell us time and again that India missed the industrial revolution. India not only missed the industrial revolution, but also missed the continuity it had for centuries with its village-based sustainable production centres. What resulted during the 19th century was a scenario where industrialisation was a non-starter and the native industries were dying out. From the days when the colonial traders exported Indian cloth to Manchester and other places in England, India saw the days when it was struck by imports of mill cloth from these same places. There is a place called Chindataripet in central Chennai. It is one of the old villages like Mylapore and Thiruvetriyoor from which the birth of the colonial Madras took shape. This is the place where the English organised a community of weavers and exported the produce to England. In its original name, Chinna Thari Pettai meant the little town of looms. Imports crushed such local production centres harder and harder and they had to be made the symbols of the struggle against the videshi imports. The swadeshi movement was born. The swadeshi movement lost steam after independence and lost its focus also in the populist politics of the Congress party during the period between 1950s-1980s. Remember the mindless orchestration of the Be Indian, Buy Indian campaign during 1970s.

In contrast to this missed opportunity, India did not miss the earlier revolution started by the invention of movable type by Gutenberg. India was one of the first countries outside Europe to see the applications of printing press in non-latin languages, thanks to the missionary zeal of Europeans. India did miss the automobile revolution. For the good part of last century, we had be content with 50 yr old and 40 yr old Ambis and Fiats. India also missed the analog (is it chemical?) photography revolution. The last will be the focus of the posts to come in the following days and weeks.

2006-04-17T20:03:00.000+05:30

Frames and bytes are about the seemingly divergent worlds of film cultures and digital cultures. The planes of divergence of film cultures and digital cultures are as deceiving and transient as their building blocks - frames and bytes. It is hoped that this blog will explore the nature of film cultures and digital cultures despite the handiwork of their deceiving and transient building blocks. It is hoped that film cultures and digital cultures are also unified by the common planes they straddle. Such common planes are rather more ubiquitous than their planes of divergence. They include, among others, the planes of globalisation, modernity, post-modernity, transnationalisation, commodification, homogenisation and diasporic dispersal.

Frames and bytes are also about the silent transformation of the frames by the bytes and the resilient nature of the frames to persist in their analogue modes of transactions despite the power of the bytes to make inroads anywhere and everywhere. Can the power of frames of a film like Rashomon (the projected frames in a dark theatre crowded with an enthusiastic collecive of socially unconnected individuls) be recreated in the domesticated confines of a home despite the magical prowess of the bytes of the digtal home theatre? Home is where the domesticated film culture meets the domesticated digital culture. It is a far cry from the settings defined by the ambience of the theatre and the presence of members of a collective that gathers voluntarily and disappears when the end of the spool warrants it. There is more to what meets the eye of the researcher in the encounters between the bytes and frames in their domesticated territories than the superficialities mentioned above. I will broach the same soon.