Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
Photograph © Dhruv Malhotra
The night holds a powerful appeal for me - the silence, the palpable sense of time, and the unknown draw me to photograph. The sense of disquiet and having to be constantly aware enable making photographs that otherwise would go unnoticed. Rather than photograph the night as a mysterious world, I prefer to make visible what is ordinarily dark and hidden. I achieve this by exposing color negative film for long periods - sometimes for several hours.
I lived in Noida from 2007 till 2010 and photographed this aggressively developing semi-urban satellite of Delhi. Noida has been subjected to haphazard development for more than a few decades. I was drawn to desolate spaces lying on the edges of urbanity, inhabiting a borderland of sorts, null spaces that are almost invisible. While photographing, I would find people sleeping out in the open and the human figure in this built / un-built landscape suggested a greater complexity in the way public spaces are used. Sometimes, I chanced upon sites that had transformed to host temporary events and it was this chameleon aspect that appealed to me.
For several years, while I lived in Noida, I would simultaneously make photographs of these three subjects, and it was only later when I began to edit what was the Noida Soliloquy project, I realised Sleepers and After Party were autonomous bodies of work. It became evident these works could be a trilogy. This realization led me to travel and make photographs for Sleepers and After Party beyond the geographical constraints I had placed upon myself for Noida Soliloquy.
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At the time of our 1:1 Interview with Dhruv, he was asked these questions about the After Dark Trilogy.
PSA: Why have you chosen to work in color only?
DM: So far I have found black and white far too reductive of the world at large and color has offered a sense of solidity that is otherwise lacking.
PSA: Why did you begin shooting in the night? Why does the night continue to fascinate you?
DM: Landscape has always fascinated me, especially in and around cities. When I started photographing in Noida, initially it was during the day and the night. However, since I was often accosted by hordes of people, I started preferring to photograph at night. I also really liked the sense of solitude and almost-danger, and the fact that everything was rendered so unfamiliar. The artificial light and the play of shadows were far more fascinating than the ordinary singular light of the day.
PSA: There is a sense of make-believe in your photographs which does not seem incidental. Do you agree?
DM: I'd say it's more an extension of belief, as opposed to a suspension of disbelief (like in the fantasy books that inspire me); and the world I depict is also one I experience, and so create; an internalized landscape, if you will.
With the night work trilogy, it has been important for me to register this world that I feel is on the periphery of vision - felt more than seen directly.
PSA: Has working on the After Dark Trilogy changed you in any way?
DM: I think when I started out with it, at the time I was photographing Noida, I would go out with my camera and tripod and just photograph what I found; later with Sleepers, I realized some sense of separation and was distinctly looking for something and finding iterations of it, and that sense of specificity was there even more so with After Party.
What's carried over to my practice at large is that I’m not much of an itinerant photographer anymore and have become quite premeditated in my approach; and though I do appreciate spontaneity, it’s more in and of the moment.
PSA: For the benefit of young photographers starting out, could you please share a bit on your process of image making in this series?
DM: There's a lot of thought, experience and instinct that goes behind it, not always in equal measure, and not entirely amenable to be easily translated into words.
Generally though, I walk, travel, and wander a lot before I find the images I make, and then it's quite instinctive; with a sort of mental checklist of where the light comes from and how to meter it. Usually it’s too dark for my light meter to work so I just interpolate the exposure based on where the light’s coming from and my distance to it using the inverse square law of light. I put a lot of thought into choosing my vantage point, depending on what I’m trying to do with the image.
The equipment really depends on why I’m photographing - for long exposure, personal stuff it's color negative film for the dynamic range, latitude and resolution; digital 35mm full frame for most things commercial / in the studio / experiments; and a small micro four thirds while traveling.
20 November
