lost in a city
January 25th
I had never gotten lost in a city.
This is a log that I had written after a day of wandering around Bangalore. My experience of a derive in Bangalore city.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
At about 10 this morning, my angst burst through in a stream of uncontrollable tears. A half hour later, after I was urged to immerse myself in a medium, to understand a language, I was on my way home to pick up rolls of black and white film. I was going to tend to my self through my own eyes. Everyone’s out there just waiting to let you know yourself better.
I went out to shoot photographs, and I ended up capturing thoughts, stories, and moments. It felt like I was finally talking to people.
I haven’t even developed my photographs yet, but what I am about to narrate is my day’s experience, of having done something like I was doing it for the first time.
So I haven’t shot with my SLR for over two years now. Photography, to me was a new medium all over again today.
On my way to the city, I wondered where I wanted most to go and shoot. A place that I’ve never been to before. But in a city, that’s often hard to find. I ventured into the majestic city area of Bangalore, with the challenge of finding suitably exciting frames in an extremely crowded place. There was no empty space. The moment the bus pulled into the bus stop, I was reminded of Bombay all over again.
I remember having spoken to a photographer called chirordeep that I’d once met in Bombay. And he had mostly shot in Bombay, and his photographs at first conveyed a certain calm and empty space which I didn’t relate to Bombay, and so they seemed untrue to the subject. But that evening on my way back home, I thought once again of his photographs, played them in my mind, and then I realized that he seemed to have actually, through the emptiness, captured the moments of solace that we all seek in a city. Spaces of emptiness and calm that we long for but don’t seem to find easily.
I was looking for images with interesting light conditions. Throughout the day, I met different kinds of people. People who were intrigued by the looks of a girl wandering about bravely with a camera, some who were a little annoyed because maybe I was breaching some sort of dog –like boundaries that they had created in this vast public arena. Some asked me what I was doing, where I was from, and why I was shooting photos. A lot of people asked me to shoot a picture of them and eagerly posed for me.
I had to pretend to take photographs of many and then nod and smile like I had taken a picture of them.
I apologized to a guard in an underpass subway, for having appreciated some beautiful light that was trickling into the otherwise dark and dingy subway.
In the flower market, a shopkeeper told me something in kannada, I’m afraid I don’t know what he said, but his flailing arms said, “go away from here”.
This makes me wonder, what the people who sit in these same places every single day, think when a stranger walks into these spaces, not to buy anything or meet anyone, but just for a few moments to point a camera at them. Am I breaking some kind of norm? Disrupting someone’s peaceful existence? Being a little superficial?
After a point, I lost all sense of direction and therefore control. I let myself wander around.
In the market, I was accompanied by a drunken man for some distance. He insisted on pursuing a conversation with me. He first tried to speak in kannada, then in Tamil, then in Hindi and finally in some broken English! After some time I had to tell him to stop following me.
A little distance away, I met my next door neighbour.
At a park, I was able to communicate to a woman, who had longed for someone to speak to her in that very language for 15 days.
And I’m back home now, where I’m most comfortable.
I do feel an inkling of satisfaction. I think somewhere I found some spirit.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“From the lack of discipline emerges surprise,
the unforeseeable and the capacity for investigation,
not in order to corroborate an intuition
but to discover unimagined outcomes.”
I had never gotten lost in a city.
This is a log that I had written after a day of wandering around Bangalore. My experience of a derive in Bangalore city.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
At about 10 this morning, my angst burst through in a stream of uncontrollable tears. A half hour later, after I was urged to immerse myself in a medium, to understand a language, I was on my way home to pick up rolls of black and white film. I was going to tend to my self through my own eyes. Everyone’s out there just waiting to let you know yourself better.
I went out to shoot photographs, and I ended up capturing thoughts, stories, and moments. It felt like I was finally talking to people.
I haven’t even developed my photographs yet, but what I am about to narrate is my day’s experience, of having done something like I was doing it for the first time.
So I haven’t shot with my SLR for over two years now. Photography, to me was a new medium all over again today.
On my way to the city, I wondered where I wanted most to go and shoot. A place that I’ve never been to before. But in a city, that’s often hard to find. I ventured into the majestic city area of Bangalore, with the challenge of finding suitably exciting frames in an extremely crowded place. There was no empty space. The moment the bus pulled into the bus stop, I was reminded of Bombay all over again.
I remember having spoken to a photographer called chirordeep that I’d once met in Bombay. And he had mostly shot in Bombay, and his photographs at first conveyed a certain calm and empty space which I didn’t relate to Bombay, and so they seemed untrue to the subject. But that evening on my way back home, I thought once again of his photographs, played them in my mind, and then I realized that he seemed to have actually, through the emptiness, captured the moments of solace that we all seek in a city. Spaces of emptiness and calm that we long for but don’t seem to find easily.
I was looking for images with interesting light conditions. Throughout the day, I met different kinds of people. People who were intrigued by the looks of a girl wandering about bravely with a camera, some who were a little annoyed because maybe I was breaching some sort of dog –like boundaries that they had created in this vast public arena. Some asked me what I was doing, where I was from, and why I was shooting photos. A lot of people asked me to shoot a picture of them and eagerly posed for me.
I had to pretend to take photographs of many and then nod and smile like I had taken a picture of them.
I apologized to a guard in an underpass subway, for having appreciated some beautiful light that was trickling into the otherwise dark and dingy subway.
In the flower market, a shopkeeper told me something in kannada, I’m afraid I don’t know what he said, but his flailing arms said, “go away from here”.
This makes me wonder, what the people who sit in these same places every single day, think when a stranger walks into these spaces, not to buy anything or meet anyone, but just for a few moments to point a camera at them. Am I breaking some kind of norm? Disrupting someone’s peaceful existence? Being a little superficial?
After a point, I lost all sense of direction and therefore control. I let myself wander around.
In the market, I was accompanied by a drunken man for some distance. He insisted on pursuing a conversation with me. He first tried to speak in kannada, then in Tamil, then in Hindi and finally in some broken English! After some time I had to tell him to stop following me.
A little distance away, I met my next door neighbour.
At a park, I was able to communicate to a woman, who had longed for someone to speak to her in that very language for 15 days.
And I’m back home now, where I’m most comfortable.
I do feel an inkling of satisfaction. I think somewhere I found some spirit.
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….
“From the lack of discipline emerges surprise,
the unforeseeable and the capacity for investigation,
not in order to corroborate an intuition
but to discover unimagined outcomes.”
posted by nish at 1:30 AM
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