Kishor Kayastha, Laxmi Prasad Ngakhusi, and Bijay Gajmer from Nepal and Prashant Panjiar, Dinesh Khanna, and Ravi Agarwal from India will be showcasing their photo stories, consisting of 10 photographs each, at the Nepal Art Council.[break]
From celebrations and festivities to the degradation of rivers due to sewage disposal, their images explore the relationship of people and water in major cities of the two nations.
Rivers of Pilgrimage, which opens to the public on Friday, September 17, will also feature a presentation program by five photographers on Sunday, September 19, at 4 pm at the Nepal Art Council, Babar Mahal, in Kathmandu.
Featured here are three of the photographers participating in the exhibition.
DINESH KHANNA, India
Believing that following the footsteps of his photographer father would be succumbing to the Indian caste system, Khanna evaded photography for years. He worked as a calculator salesman, a garments quality checker, a busboy and a client servicing executive before turning to photography at the age of 33. Now, Khanna has been a professional photographer for the last 20 years and has been working as a freelancer the entire time.Photo story: Everyday in Eternity
Year: These photographs are from 2006 but are part of a project I’ve been working on from 2005 till the present.
Cameras: Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 7D
What is it about?
Benaras, or Varanasi, as it is known today, is also known as the Eternal City and is a major pilgrimage centre for Hindus. However, in the last many years of visiting the city, I find that Benaras is a true microcosm of India. All that’s good and inspiring about the country can be found here as much as all that’s bad, irritating or irrational, too. Benaras is special because it’s a spiritual and religious destination for millions but it also has an ordinary and everyday existence like any other town or city does. It’s this bandwidth of the inane and the exotic that I’m exploring and trying to record photographically.
How would you differentiate photography from other genres of art, such as painting and sculpture?
Photography, like writing or painting or sculpture, is just a medium or a craft. It becomes a medium of expression or an art form in the hands of those who want to use it to say something more about a subject, topic or issue, which is close to their heart, or concerns them. Or it can be used for mundane recording of everyday events or happenings.
Therefore, I don’t think photography should be really differentiated from the other arts or crafts as it’s as special or mundane, depending on how it’s used by the person using it, rather than anything inherent in photography itself.
PRASHANT PANJIAR, India
Panjiar joined mainstream journalism in 1984 with the Patriot newspaper for which he photographed many important events, including the riots after the assassination of Indira Gandhi and terrorism in Punjab. He is one India’s three senior photographers who select and mentor young documentary photographers for the National Foundation of India’s fellowship program.Photo story: Tirtha – Kumbh Mela
Year: The black & white panoramic images were made during the Kumbh Melas of 2007 and 2010 in Allahabad and Haridwar respectively.
Cameras: Black & white film on a panoramic camera and Canon cameras and lenses for digital photography
What is it about?
India’s religious festival, the Kumbh Mela, is the largest gathering of humans on the planet. As many as 70 million people came together for 2007’s six-week fair. For all its complexity and enormity, the Kumbh is actually about the simplicity of faith that drives this massive enterprise. It’s about how every person is able to make a connection with his or her belief while being part of such a large noise.
What do you try to convey through your photographs?
I don’t think any photographer can clearly state what he/she tries to convey through their individual photographs. I believe that good photographs are ambiguous, and shouldn’t necessarily end up meaning one thing or the other. Therefore, to understand what a photographer is trying to convey, you actually have to look at his/her body of work. And if you would like a one-line answer, then I would say that what I’m trying to convey through my work as a photographer is the dignity of the ordinary human being, with a hope that this will generate a respect in the viewer for the OTHER.
KISHOR KAYASTHA, Nepal
Kayastha, known for his fashion spreads in ECS magazine, started out in photography two decades back.“I’ve been in this field from an early age and even I don’t remember when exactly,” he says. Regardless of when and why, Kayastha has created a niche in Nepal’s fashion photography, and therefore, his images at Rivers of Pilgrimage gives one a different take on his works as it’s far removed from the studio setting.
Photo story: Chhat Parwa and Madhav Narayan
Year: Chhat Parwa of 2007, Madhav Narayan from 1999 to 2007
Camera: Nikon
What is it about?
Both the stories are simply based on water. Water is a must for survival. In fact, life is said to have first originated in water and then came along civilizations and cultures. I strongly believe that water is an important part of Hindu culture, due to which I have mainly focused on the cultural activities connected to water for this exhibition.
How is this photo feature different from your other works that people are more familiar with, i.e., glamour/fashion photography?
It’s completely different from the fashion work of mine since I started my career in photography as art, specially focusing on festivals and architecture of the Newar culture. When fashion photography started building its hype, I tried my hand in the field and I’m doing well in it. But I’m learning from every fashion shoot I conduct and get inspiration from other fashion photographers who have been around for long and have more ideas than I do.
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