These days, I spend too much time behind a camera hunting for pretty pictures, and too little simply documenting what I see around me. The latter is very satisfying, very amateur (in a good way) and largely what I did for ten years before getting slightly more serious about it all. The upcoming project documentary is going to take more observation than perhaps I’m used to these days, but the more observational work I do meets a positive response - The Council Estate and just yesterday, The House - and it’s all good practice for the big project. I’ve spent a lot of time in Pondicherry since I was a baby, and there’s a familiarity which prevents me wandering around as I might in a new town or city. So much of this place is tied to my family and its history, that I’m looking at my own family more closely, even as I’m stared at in the street… Christina found a splendid internet cafe last time she was here, and where I sit right now, and of course the people here know my family, don’t they? Pretty much everyone and anyone in the ashram knows Atma, my eldest cousin, and ashramites all know each other anyway. So I’m being observed too, as it happens, and noting that, I’m off to photograph the derelict patch of land that my father and his two brothers have owned since the 1960s.
Preparing for the major project
Apparently, there’s a lot I don’t know about preparing a major body of work. Over the next few weeks, I’ll have to soak up a lot of guidance from my tutors about how this is different from a simple photo story.
Rather than dig something exciting from my ideas book, I’ve decided to go for something familiar that I know, and pursue more exciting ideas once I graduate.
The subjects are the Denotified Nomadic Tribes of Gujarat, whom I spent some time meeting and photographing last February. I went through the local NGO who briefed me on the history of all the groups, the issues and adversity the tribes face, and how things have begun to change.
This time, I have the luxury of time, and intend to cover more areas in much more depth. I’ve got two months in Gujarat, I speak their language, I have family backup in the state and injustice is a subject I and many others feel strongly about. The original story from 2008: The Usual Suspects
