1. What is your earliest memory of how or what attracted you to photography?
My earliest memory (I think!) was in my college days in Bombay, where secondhand issues of Life and Post were sold on the streets. I remember seeing Eugene Smith’s Minamata pictures of victims of mercury exposure. I was so overwhelmed by the images – they really needed no text. I had no divisions in my head like photojournalism, or art, or whatever, but I knew these were powerful pictures. Also, in the ’70s, I saw Pablo Bartholomew’s images of morphine addicts in India that stayed with me. I think maybe India Today had also started giving a lot of space to photography under Raghu Rai. So, these were my early memories.
2. Did you study photography formally in a college or university? What was your experience?
I studied photography for a year at NYU long after completing my Master’s in Communication Arts at Cornell. (I had returned to India after my master’s degree and worked.) It helped that I went back to NYU many years after working, first at Urban India in Delhi and then at Imprint in Bombay where I wrote and took pictures. I think going to study photography in my late twenties was good, as I was more mature and knew what I wanted. The year in NY was perhaps my most exciting year: the classes were great. I had never seen a darkroom so generous and so big and so magical with revolving doors and theatrical curtains and chemicals that flowed from taps. It was also good because Raghubir Singh spent time with me: he took me to meet many of the great photographers in their darkrooms and homes – Lee Friedlander, William Gedney, Bill Christenberry. He also introduced me to prints and photographs in museums – also to paintings and cinema. He was a world traveler. He would tell me about the Prado in Madrid, the Louvre in Paris, or Indian miniatures at the Fogg, and what excited him about Naipaul or Ray. On weekends, I worked at a photography store in Soho dealing with just photo books. This, together with the excellent year at NYU, was key to my becoming a photographer. I was certain then that this was my path.
3. Please tell us about your experience in the late 1980s, when you were taking pictures of Mumbai, under the guidance of your mentor Raghubir Singh. What did this experience teach you? What was your most valuable lesson from him?
Raghubir was uncompromising and truthful in his feedback and generous with his time. I think the most important lesson I learned was that you need to shoot a lot, learn to distinguish between mediocre and better, pour over your contact sheets as a lesson in hits and misses, and not to be in a tearing hurry to show. With the exception of a few “hits,” until Twinspotting, I can’t really remember high praise from him. He was careful with what he said. He just wanted to see great pictures. These exacting standards taught me a lot. When my parents were confounded by my long hours in the darkroom with nothing to show, he said just wait.
4. The first photograph you made for your Photo Studio project is the image of the blue stool against the red curtain that you chanced upon at the Jagdish Photo Studio in Manori, Maharashtra. It is a moment of both entry and departure in your photographic practice, as you work in color and with the digital medium for the first time. Can you please tell us about your shift here from analog and black & white?
It happened for boring and practical reasons, like the unavailability of film and chemicals. But when it happened, it just flowed. Yes, the blue stool was my calling! I loved color and was so glad that I made the shift. It was like learning a new language in my 50s, which I seemed to acquire without any learning, if you know what I mean. It was just instinctive.
5. All of your major works – A Certain Grace, Twinspotting, and Bombay Mix – focus on the making of portraits. In your Photo Studio project, in addition to making portraits, you are looking at still life as well. Can you tell us about this?
Yes, Photo Studio is more than just portraits. I wanted to pick up vestiges of time and I wanted to do it imaginatively. I wanted to bring life and magic to props and objects that had their own sense of belonging in the studio.
6. Do you think it is important to receive formal training in photography?
No. But for me, my one year at NYU, both inside and outside the classroom, was a watershed year. It was 1984-1985. I was in NYC when Mrs. Gandhi was killed. I was in the bookstore where I worked when I heard the news and the owner said, “I think you should take the day off.” It was also the year that Raghubir was in and out of New York, which meant I had a double education.
7. If you were to design a photo program for young Indian photographers, what would it look like?
I think young people today are so bright, resourceful, and inventive. I don’t think degree courses in photography are really necessary. There are no rules, one has to be just confident about what you want and know how to get it. The key thing is to work hard, I think, and to enjoy it! When the obsession sets in, it’s a good sign! I think they just need to be patient and selective in knowing what work to share and when to share it. With social media as pervasive as it is, you should not regret a statement or an image that’s totally thoughtless, if you know what I mean. Editing also comes with time. Editing and thinking are two sides of the same process. It may mean leaving a lot out. This can hurt, but as you mature you realize what was left out was probably a good thing!
8. Who or what has inspired you to pursue photography and/or continues to do so?
So many. The usual suspects in photography, of course. But sometimes surprise exhibitions, which just leap into you. Like Waste Not by Wu Hung, and some touch your soul forever like Fukase’s Solitude of Ravens. There is so much good work around us and I feel grateful for it.
9. Is there a book, exhibition, or body of work that has really impressed you and maybe influenced your work / life?
There are so many people that I can’t list them all. I read almost as much as I photograph, and I see films when I can. I have my share of favorite writers and photographers and filmmakers. Recently, I read Hisham Matar’s A Month in Sienna, which I loved. And Lee and Raghubir, both voracious readers of a different kind, gave me so many books when I was in my twenties, like Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows. I also loved Our Films Their Films by Ray. It said everything about his craft without being pompous or pedagogic.
I read fiction, too, and there are always stories in my head. My friends Rashid & Ayesha introduced me to poetry in my twenties. In recent years, my daughter has introduced me to reading plays, which inspired me to write one. I come from a home, which was full of books and art, so in a way I had a very early education then, without really knowing it. But I am a photographer at heart. It’s as simple as that. No labels.
10. 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?
Generally, gut feelings. Ideas don’t always work, so as you mature you have a different concept of time. You may have less time in your life than a younger photographer, but you actually wind up spending more time on a single subject or work because you aren’t in a racing hurry to show. At least I’m not. Currently, I am intrigued by memory and what it does to you. The lockdown has actually been good for me, I think. I have had to turn my camera inwards and not out.
11. Do your projects typically run in parallel, or do you focus on one project at a time?
There is no key rule. Sometimes a project is just not working and needs to be put aside for something else. Sometimes you return to it with a different perspective. Sometimes you just abandon it. There’s sadness in leaving something behind, but then a revelation years later when maybe some images from that work bounce back into what you are doing. Last year I did not photograph. I wrote a play instead. My first.
12. 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?
I generally have a sense when something is going right. I always share my work with one or two close friends and my husband, Auro. My daughter, Diya, when she shows interest! I share with my gallerist, Devika Daulet-Singh, after a point. There is always room for change. Photography is a very solitary preoccupation.
13. Do you ever find yourself creatively ‘stuck?’ Is there something that is particularly helpful to you in overcoming this?
Putting it aside and coming back after a while. In retrospect, I am glad I spent many months last year writing my play. I have come back to photographing. I’m trying something new. It’s personal. I’m not in a hurry. I will watch it grow.
14. How much effort do you put into getting your work shown? Is this important to you? Does showing your work feed your creative process, or does it distract you from it?
I am extremely lazy about myself. Those who live with me know this best. So, for me to have a gallerist is important. It’s a lonely life being a photographer, but one that suits my temperament. In the end, it’s wonderful when people see your work as they are always asking, “Where can we see something?” But it’s frustrating when work you have spent so many years on can’t get seen in your own hometown. It’s been 13 years since I showed in Mumbai, and this hurts. I wish gallerists worked better with each other and shared spaces more generously.
15. Do you think there is a universal language that photography uses? Do you think that South Asian photographers are finding that they are judged by western criteria and standards?
In my days, we did look to the West for language and inspiration. I think the language of photography still requires a deep understanding of these masters. To be neglectful of this would be a loss. Access is easier now as everything is on the net and you don’t need to buy books or wait to see some faraway exhibition, as many of these can be seen virtually. But I think in the years since, Indian photographers have evolved their own way of looking, partly because of easy access to cameras, the world at their fingertips, and partly because there is so much to show in the constantly evolving India. Even doing something personal can record a history of sorts.
16. 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?
To be more flexible and open to change. And to not lose your cool so easily. Everything happens in its time.
17. How would an interested collector go about buying your work?
Go through my gallery PHOTOINK, or eMail me directly: ketaki@ketakisheth.com.
18. If you didn’t do photography, what other career might you have pursued?
Hmm. I used to love to sing and maybe could have trained my voice, though that would have been harder than photography, I think!
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Copyright © Maryam Eisler
20 November
