The dreamy, lyrical quality of black and white images

I have long-standing ishq with black and white photography especially when it comes to capturing personalities. Perhaps, it stems from my long journalistic stint when coloured newspapers were a rarity and black and white had to say it all. And it did. In no uncertain terms.

This conviction in black and white led me to do my first book in 1995 A Moment in Time with Legends of Indian Arts where I wrote about 22 top artists and artistes who shaped Indian arts as they are known now. The two major USPs of the book were the fact that for the first time all the art forms were treated as a composite whole and the fact that the lavishly illustrated book had been all shot by news photographers. Their camera lingered lovingly and hovered on them trying to capture their immensely interesting faces, of lives lived, their genius, their performances, their candid moments. The sheer speed these photographers were used to, ensured that no moment was lost.

The book included interviews with stalwarts like artists M.F. Husain, Satish Gujral, J. Swaminathan, Krishan Khanna, dancers Yamini Krishnamurthy, Birju Maharaj, Kelucharan Mohapatra, theatre people Ebrahim Alkazi, B V Karanth, Manohar Singh, Sheila Bhatia, musicians Ravi Shankar, Bismillah Khan, M.S. Subbulakshmi, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Balamurli Krishanan, Bhimsen Joshi, Girija Devi, Ali Akbar Khan, Ram Narayan, Mallikarjun Mansur and Kishan Maharaj.

At Shobha Deepak Singh’s latest show of black and white photographs of classical musicians, Musicscapes, it all came tumbling back as it seemed like meeting old friends in the heightened creative moment when they are sharing the joy and fruits of their creative impulse. Most of the images have been shot in black and white and the show featured some top musicians of the classical pantheon mostly from the concert platform in a perfectly distilled moment of perfection.

Shobha is a tireless woman who has kept the flag of Indian performing arts flying high for over six decades. She designs costumes, meddles with dance and music to great impact, efficiently runs the Shri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra – that cannot be the easiest of things given how temperamental artistes can be and in addition to all this still manages to find time to take some perfect pictures! Perfectly groomed by her mother Sumitra Chatratram, she has taken from there but taken it many steps ahead.

At the show was launched a book Musicscapes, the last of the trilogy of Theatrescapes and Dancescapes. To my mind they should all be called dreamscapes for there is a dreamy, lyrical quality about them that lingers long after you have left. This is the best part about black and white photography. It manages to highlight the interesting aspects of a persona, provided the persona is intrinsically interesting. I say this not as a contradiction in terms but knowing fully well the faces of our legendry artists are replete with a beauty that is has been earned with lives surrendered to the one God – their art, in this case their music.

Music has the ability to transport, transcend and elevate the listener — can you imagine the enormity of its impact on its creators The passion these musicians bring with their music to the concert platform must be moving them so much that everything else would be paling into insignificance. This comes across very clearly in the exhibition.

There are beautiful images of the inimitable vocalist Jasraj, Kishori Amonkar, Ravi Shankar in his later years of bearded glory and as the charismatic sitarist, an ever smiling Bismillah Khan, the heart throb of millions Zakir Husain, a very charming one of Kaushiki Chakraborty, the gaunt Mallikarjun Mansoor, the flautist Hari Prasad Chaurasia whose playing can only remind one of Lord Krishna, the great sarodiya Ali Akbar Khan .the list is long and the pictures stupendous. It is sad that many of them are no more to see this wonderful show.

However, the presentation of the exhibition curated by Alka Pande could have been more flattering to the images. While one understands where it is coming from to use wide bands of coloured stripes of seven colours to highlight the sargam, placing the stark black and white images on them was very distracting. Perhaps the entire wall could have been covered in the colours chosen or maybe only sections of the gallery highlighted. The whole point of the exercise was the black and white images, painting these coloured stripes was disturbing the visual aesthetics. Presentation and design of any exhibition is half the magic after all. The best of art can end up looking ordinary if the design and presentation are not in tune with the aesthetics of the real thing being showcased.

But the coup was the use of technology to enhance the genius of these stalwarts by having recordings play in the cubicle divisions. One had to place one’s hand over the play back instrument and the music could be heard wafting like honey and like a veritable bee one was drawn to it to hear the sounds of their music one more time and linger in front of a frozen moment like a shrine.

Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com