1. What is your earliest memory of how or what attracted you to photography?
My father borrowed a camera to make a photograph of me on my first day at school. There was hope and happiness on his face. Many years later, this memory gave me strength to be a photographer against all odds.
2. Did you study photography formally in a college or university? If so, what was your experience? If not, how did you inform yourself about the medium – the techniques, the language, and the aesthetics of it?
I am a self-taught photographer. I started my career as a photojournalist, working as a stringer for newspapers and magazines. In college, I majored in philosophy, the study of which opened me to art history, literature, and cinema. My learnings as a student of philosophy, alongside my training as a photojournalist, enabled me to hone both the art and craft of the medium.
3. In your opinion, is it important to have a formal training in photography? Why?
Formal training can be of different kinds – studying at a photography school, assisting a photographer, etc. I believe formal training is important – it teaches one the rigor and the discipline required to be a photographer. A good education or a serious mentorship can open a young photographer to a multitude of ideas, possibilities, and ways of looking.
4. If you were to design a photo program for young Indian photographers what would it look like?
Photography education is still beyond the limits of most students in India. My key concern while designing a photography program will be to ensure that it is accessible to as many aspiring photographers as possible and not just a privileged few.
5. Who or what has inspired you to pursue photography and/or continues to do so?
My mother who makes beautiful photographs of her children, her home and all that she remembers and forgets.
6. Is there a book, an exhibition or a body of work that has really impressed you and maybe even influenced your work / life?
The book Solitude of Ravens by the Japanese photographer Masahise Fukase and the photo essay Country Doctor by W. Eugene Smith.
7. What draws / drew you to the subject matter you are pursuing in your current work? Does it come as a gut feeling, or after analysis or research? Memory? Something that bothers you?
For me, making photographs is both an existential and a metaphysical quest. Emotional and intellectual anxieties drive me as a photographer. Intuition / gut feeling is what I rely on when it comes to making work. I am drawn to a subject when I feel compelled to tell a story.
8. Do your projects typically run in parallel, or do you focus on one project at a time?
My practice originates in the tradition of documentary photography and is best represented by the handmade or the artist book. I do not work on projects in a focused way, but photograph everything that gets my curiosity or leads me to questions that I am keen to engage with.
9. How do you measure success or that a body of work is going well? Do you share it with colleagues or others? Your own sense of it?
Honestly, I haven’t thought about success much. I come from humble origins – I was raised in a slum in Old Delhi by parents who had meager resources but an unwavering resolve to educate their children. The fact that I can photograph and tell the stories that I want to, is my success in an industry that is still driven by privilege.
10. Do you ever find yourself creatively ‘stuck?’ Is there something that is particularly helpful to you in overcoming this?
Of course, I do. Walking is cathartic in such a phase. And listening to Kishori Amonkar through the night, until dawn.
11. How much effort do you put into getting your work shown? Is this important to you? If so, why? Does showing your work feed your creative process or does it distract from it?
In the early years of my career, showing work was important – to me it was a marker of finding acceptance in our industry. I was an outsider; I did not have resources to attend photography festivals, portfolio reviews, or workshops. Exhibitions became a way of sharing my work, finding the right audience for it. Having exhibited at some of the most prestigious festivals, biennales, galleries, etc, over the past three years, I want to go incognito for a while, now. I want to take a sabbatical from professional photography and work in the social sector.
12. Do you feel that there are adequate opportunities and avenues to share / show your work in your home country, or do you always look for such opportunities abroad?
In comparison to the West, there is not much institutional support for photographers in India. Though the situation has improved in the past few years, I feel it is still not enough. I have been lucky to work with Devika Daulet-Singh, one of the most important voices in photography in the subcontinent. Her mentorship has enabled me to share my work both in India and abroad. However, at this stage in my career, showing work is the least of my concerns. What I am invested in is re-imagining my practice and exploring other media – I am currently working on my first film. As I have mentioned above, I intend to take a sabbatical from photography.
13. We know that fine art or documentary photography is not always enough to make a living. Some do commercial work, others teach. Are there other photography related areas that you work with in order to supplement your living; some that you would recommend aspiring photographers to consider?
Photographers can design and lead photo walks. They can also earn their bread and butter in a different field and pursue photography on the side.
14. Why do you find that the handmade artist’s book best represents your photography?
As I mentioned earlier, I do not necessarily work on projects. I am more of a compulsive photographer. Due to the volume of work I have, it becomes easier to preserve it in books. A book then is not just a record of the work, but also a way to build insight on it. I feel the form of the book lends itself effortlessly to storytelling, which is what interests me the most in photography.
15. Please share a bit about your first film, with which you are currently engaged.
It is a short fiction film that explores that idea of an individual’s identity and sexuality.
16. Digital technology has changed photography drastically over the last few years. Did you initially embrace the changes or resist them? Do you believe the changes have been good for the medium or not? Why?
I embraced the change, as photographing on film was becoming increasingly expensive. Currently, most of my work is made with digital cameras, though I still shoot film. These changes are both good and bad. Good in terms of making the medium more accessible and democratic. The flip-side of this is that photography is increasingly becoming like fast food – it satiates hunger, but there is no nourishment.
17. Do you think there is a universal language that photography uses? Do you think that Indian photographers are finding that they are judged by western criteria and standards?
One has to make a clear distinction between a universal language of photography and American and European photography. The two aren’t the same. Since most institutions supporting and promoting photography are in the west, photographers from our part of the world rely on validation from there. Often while seeking this validation most of us blindly ape the west, creating works that will not stand the test of time. As an exercise you can study the biographies of all the photographers and artists you are interviewing for this online photography resource – most (including me) will highlight our achievements in the west, with little or no mention of what we have done in India. This pandering to the west is something that has been bothering me for a while, now, and is a contributing factor in my taking a sabbatical from photography.
18. With your years of experience, of the lessons you have learned, what is the one thing you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?
I wish someone had told me to chase excellence instead of success. This has been my biggest learning as a photographer.
19. If you didn’t do photography, what other career might you have pursued?
If I weren’t a photographer then I would be a filmmaker or a stationer.
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Copyright © Chandan Gomes
20 November
