Kashi: no more postcard frames

Added: (Tue Jun 30 2009)

Pressbox (Press Release) - Even though he chose to be a professional cameraman, the avid photographer in Nalin Kale always compelled him to push the boundaries. A well-known cameraman who has shot many documentaries, corporate films and numerous television shows, Nalin Kale’s debut photo exhibition shows a side of his that has survived the onslaught of modern times. Kashi, a series of 18 snapshots of Benaras (Varanasi), reflect the many moods of the town. The people seem familiar and so do the places yet Kale monochromatic images reveal some thing hidden. A firm believer in the traditional school of photography Kale still shoots on film.



So much so that anyone travelling from the USA is entrusted to carry specific film rolls. Perhaps it’s the technique that translates into something truly unique. Kale’s traditionalist streak interspersed with his modern times sensibilities help him juxtapose myriad emotions in each frame. One can’t help but avoid the curse of falling for the usual trappings of any popular place when it comes to photographing. Kale tries and succeeds in avoiding the postcard frames that conjure up in one’s conscious mind whilst imagining Benaras.



Time seems to be the motif that Kale’s eye revisits ever so often. For us city dwellers anything outside the geographical limits of our existence is alien. There are places within our lives that we’d often find different and maybe the challenge of unearthing a world within a city so often photographed is perhaps what drove Kale. The obligatory early morning shots of the Ghats or the images of the river front brilliantly lit during the evening aarti don’t look jaded. Even photographing the people who dot the place shows Nalin’s prowess to confine an entire story in a single frame.



Upon viewing a man and his grandson reading the newspaper in front of their hut, a woman sweeping the kitchen with sunlight spying on her, a traveller looking aimlessly into the horizon, a woman peering into Nalin’s camera while waiting in her group for the boat to ferry her across the river it’s like you know their story. Two images that encompass Nalin Kale’s exceptionally studied compositions would without a doubt be the one in which a solitary man standing on the edge of a Ghat feeds pigeons and the one that has three women wonderfully timed as they cross walk along a by-lane.



The penchant for the time-honoured way of photographing might be a dying art but in Nalin Kale it finds a good student. It’s a pity then the photos weren’t printed on regular ‘photo’ paper for that would have further heightened the viewing pleasure. But that’s not reason enough for the images to move you.


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