Ubiquitous Snapshots

Vinod Babu Venkapalli talks to Conchita Fernandes about the highs and lows of his career, so far, in photography, and how the cameraphone eventually liberated him.

- Conchita Fernandes

The iconic filmmaker, playwright and photographer, Wim Wenders, reflected on the status that a picture takes on when left undisclosed… “An image that is unseen can’t sell anything. It is pure, therefore true, beautiful, in one word: innocent. As long as no eye contaminates it, it is in perfect unison with the world. If it is not seen, the image and the object it represents belong together.” Albeit, the very essence of a photograph comes from seeing, but it is the aftermath, the purpose that its maker assigns to it, that determines its role in the cache of imagery.

Vinod Babu Venkapalli, a name that is quite well-known in the street and documentary collective in India, has, up until now, largely kept the pictures he made with his cellphone, to himself. They, like Wender’s commentary on the attributes of unseen photographs, are pure, therefore true, beautiful, and innocent.

On relinquishing Control