Painting photographs

If one has to explore Indian street photography, it is easy to find vibrancy and colour, but it is easier to find poverty. Poverty, in fact, happens to be a common theme in many such series. However, there is one photographer who is not happy with this portrayal at all and feels that it is a “partial portrayal of the streets of India”. 

Photographer Sudipta Chakraborty says, “When I used to look at photographic works of people who worked on India, it was very disheartening. Especially, those who come from the west try to depict India in a certain way and street photography is a huge part of it. India comes across as a poor country in so many of these street photography projects. That used to hurt me a lot.” This was the starting point of his foray into street photography. 

“On the streets, the mood quickly changes. I felt like I had to capture those unique moments,” Sudipta further elaborates.  Landscape also used to be his favourite genre. “I explored a lot of landscapes in fine arts and this passion  was later carried forward to photography. There is a unique charm to landscapes. Indian landscapes are really beautiful and I had a desire to bring out that beauty through my work,” he says.

While he has been passionate about photography since the age of 16, this Kolkata-based photographer started professional photography in 2010.  And shifting from painting to photography was an easy transition for him.  “I can’t compare the two artforms at all. There is a different charm to these and the artforms are not comparable at all,” he explains. Talking about his photography mantra, Sudipta says, “Will power, flexibility and vision increase if one spends more time in the field. My advise is that one should keep exploring the field as much as they can as it is a minefield of ideas.”