It was Ernst Battenberg, a German publisher, who gifted Dayanita Singh her first camera. Singh used the Pentax ME Super judiciously. In the 1980s, she had little choice: "At NID [Ahmedabad's National Institute of Design], I would make my own contact sheets. Nobody could afford giving them to labs. Also, making prints was an unimaginable luxury." Instead of the usual 36, she would try to eke out 38 frames from a roll of film. Singh was not greedy or parsimonious. The times were frugal.
Homebound during the pandemic, Singh pored over her contact sheets, "the heart of her work". When looking at her photographs from 1981 to 1993 laid out in front of her, she instinctively knew she had a photo-novel on her hands. "But I didn't want the book to have a beautiful image on one page and another beautiful image alongside it," she says, "I wanted the photos to do what text does."
For Milan Kundera, "the novel's spirit is the spirit of continuity-a thing made to last, to connect the past with the future". Of the many novelistic things that Singh's Let's See does, it first meets this Kundera precondition. When, for instance, we see Singh's subjects flipping photo albums, we think of the photographer herself, bent over her contact sheets-but we also see our reading selves mirrored. Rather than dramatic acts, this book is made of these small gestures. And almost all are generous.
This story is from the October 03, 2022 edition of India Today.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the October 03, 2022 edition of India Today.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
AAMCHI ENGLISH
You'd think its history of language politics would have nixed such a possibility.
SULTANS OF AASMAN
It's harvest season for India's charter flight operators, as eager candidates hop on to rented choppers and small aircraft with sky-high ambitions.
Music to OUR EARS
After signing a record deal with Warner Music Group, Nora Fatehi sets her sights on being a global pop star
Rebel with a CAUSE
A retrospective of revolutionary artist Gobardhan Ash showcases four decades of his practice at the Kolkata Centre for Creativity
HYBRID FORMS
Mythic Femininities at DAG Delhi brings together a well-chosen crosssection of the late GOGI SAROJ PAL'S large body of work
OUT OF THE SHADOWS
JAI MEHTA makes his directorial debut with Disney+ Hotstar's web series Lootere
MAN OF MANY PARTS
Pratik Gandhi's transition from theatre and Gujarati cinema to mainstream Bollywood is an inspirational tale
THE DUNKI REPUBLIC
Rivers flowing down from the Himalayan massifs are known to have fickle habits-they curl about, meander and, if they stray far enough, get captured by bigger river systems.
A SENSE OF DEPRIVATION
As the Uddhav Sena gets a lion's share in the MVA seat-sharing deal, discontent brews within Congress ranks over the leadership conceding three key seats
Kshatriyas Declare War on Rupala
The minister's appeasement of Dalits has upset the warrior class, who want his candidature withdrawn or they will stir trouble for the BJP in all 26 seats