1. What is your earliest memory of how or what attracted you to photography?
This is a tough one! Perhaps the first photographs that really struck me were Robert Capa’s pictures from the 1944 D-Day Normandy landings. I also remember buying William Klein’s New York 1954-55 photobook and being mesmerized by his pictures.
2. Did you study photography formally in a college or university? 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, though I did work as a picture editor and my job was to edit and sequence other photographers’ works. But I learned everything photographs can do and can be by looking at photobooks. I still look at photobooks almost every day and I am still learning things about photography.
3. If you were to design a photo program for young Sri Lankan photographers, what would it look like?
I think a long-term mentorship program is something young Sri Lankan photographers could really benefit from.
4. Who or what has inspired you to pursue photography and/or continues to do so?
Strangely, I would say that painting and movies have inspired me to pursue photography. Looking at paintings gives me visual ideas about what to do next. Watching movies makes me think about storytelling. For me, photography is between the two and I cherish the relation with the real-world that it offers, which is why my practice is not studio-based only. I rely on chance and the random encounters life has to offer, if you stay open.
5. Is there a book, exhibition or body of work that has really impressed you and maybe influenced your work / life?
Patrick Faigenbaum’s and Chris Killip’s books are the ones I have looked at the most since I started photography.
6. 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?
It is a mix of many things – childhood memories, extensive research, readings, and, last but not least, the feeling that what you are pursuing is not meant to end up in a photograph. I am really obsessive once I start something, and I often devote many years to a project.
7. What has been your inspiration to work on the story of the Ramayana?
There have been many reasons that I selected the Ramayana. One among the few I can pinpoint is my desire to explore storytelling through photography. Indeed, photography is not the most suitable medium to pick if you want to tell a story. Even when showcased as a series of pictures – on a wall or in a book – there will always be holes and broken sequences. For this very reason, the viewer has to engage with the work to create his own story: it creates a shimmer of possibilities, to paraphrase Paul Graham. Working with the strength and weakness of the medium, to rethink the Ramayana was a great and inspiring challenge.
8. You have been working on A Myth of Two Souls for eight years now. What were some of the challenges you faced working for so long on a single project?
There are ups and downs when you work on a long-term project. In my case, I knew from the start that I wanted to photograph in different ways, to echo the content of each chapter and the unfolding of the story. Although A Myth of Two Souls is one single project, it is composed of seven chapters that were built independently over the years.
9. The people that you have photographed to represent the various characters in Afterlife and the other chapters in A Myth of Two Souls are people that you met as passers-by during the numerous trips that you made across India. What was your experience interacting with strangers and staging photos with them?
Well, it’s been different with everyone really. Sometimes I stayed an entire day, creating a portrait with my subject. Sometimes it took us only ten minutes. There are no rules. For example, staying longer does not necessarily mean you will get a better picture. Chance is a big part of making a successful portrait – you need to stay open to what reality offers, as it is often stronger than fiction.
10. In Afterlife, why did you choose to have a predominantly black background for the images?
Afterlife is the sixth chapter of the project, and it tells of the bloody war between Rama and Ravana. As I wanted the book to be very dark, I decided to photograph only at night, using a flash in order to erase the backgrounds. As a result, there is an otherworldly gravity at play in the photographs.
11. In Afterlife, you have chosen to work quite a bit with collages. What prompted this decision?
The collage part was a discovery for me. When I got back from the second trip, I laid out the prints, and I could see so many of them had something in the background that didn’t work. I decided to start cutting things out of the prints and gluing them together, then scanning the collage. This was quite a revelation. It allowed me to mix the physical space of the festival in various cities – the pictures I shot in Kota with the ones I shot in Tamil Nadu, for example – and create a third space. If you look closely, you can see the trace of the cutter. I’ve come to realize that studio practice is as important as being in the field and as the research prior to travel.
12. It seems that, with every chapter in A Myth of Two Souls, you add a new technique of working; and now with Afterlife, you are working with both the book and the video format. How did you arrive at these choices, and how did they help you to visualize your own narrative of the Ramayana?
I am always questioning myself and my photographs, else I get bored very quickly. Experiencing is what makes photography so interesting to me: you try new things, sometimes you fail, sometimes something works. For Afterlife, it made sense to make a short video because it is the most dramatic chapter. So many things are happening at the same time during Dussehra: the videographer and I were shooting the same people, but the possibilities offered by both media allowed us to create a new format.
13. Do your projects typically run in parallel, or do you focus on one project at a time?
During the making of A Myth of Two Souls (2013-2021), I was not making any other works because the project was such a big undertaking; I needed to be fully immersed in it. Nowadays, I like to work on different series at the same time. I work on something, let the pictures rest for a month or two, do something else in the meantime, then come back to look at the pictures again. Letting the pictures sleep is the only way for me to realize which ones are here to last and which ones should never leave the archives.
14. How do you measure success or that a body of work is going well? Do you share it with colleagues or others?
My partner (in life and at work) Cécile Poimboeuf-Koizumi, with whom I co-founded our publishing house Chose Commune, is the only one I rely on when time comes to assessing a series.
15. Do you ever find yourself creatively ‘stuck?’ Is there something that is particularly helpful to you in overcoming this?
It happens rarely, but when it does, I just work on something else, as usually time is the best way to overcome a problem.
16. 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?
Getting your work out there is, of course, very important; and this is why I co-founded my own publishing house. I love to be able to interact directly with my audience.
17. 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?
Doing commissions is a good thing to do when you start photography. It helps you to become better at what you do as you often have to work according to a brief, and with tight deadlines. That being said, I don’t think there is one model to follow. Every photographer I know has a different way of making a living. Finding the one that feels right to you is all that matters, as long as you keep making personal works.
18. Do you think there is a universal language that photography uses? Do you think that Sri Lankan photographers are finding that they are judged by Western criteria and standards?
From the basics of composition to the use of light, most rules applying to photography were created by painters centuries ago. Of course, photography has its own distinguishing features. It is not painting, and yet it is strongly linked to art history. As of now I think Western criteria are still the ones defining what kind of photography is ‘good’ even though a long overdue conversation on the said standards has slowly started.
19. 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?
Don’t wait for someone to approve your work: follow your instinct and work hard.
20. If you didn’t do photography, what other career might you have pursued?
I have no clue, it is the only thing I love, the only thing I am good at.
21. How would an interested collector go about buying your work?
I am represented by The Photographers’ Gallery Print Sales (London), Jhaveri Contemporary (Mumbai), Polka Gallery (Paris), and Assembly (New York).
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Copyright © Vasantha Yogananthan
20 November
