Prashant Panjiar’s critically acclaimed solo exhibition Pan India: A Shared Habitat, a visual tour de force of how the Indian landscape has changed since the turn of the millennium, moves to Bangalore and Calcutta next after Delhi run.
In this sans serif video, the acclaimed photojournalist talks about why he shot the pictures with a panoramic camera, why he came up with the exhibition (curated by Sanjeev Saith) of the way Indians live—and why all photographers should at some point get away from the physicality of the image, and turn a bit more meditative, a bit more reflective, because the audience has become more image-savvy.
“In India, we tend to congratulate ourselves too quickly. We are really seduced by our own success. In the past we have seen this manifest itself in ways in which people will dispel any thought or any criticism that is made of India’s success. The view in all these images, in this exhibition, is to reflect upon what is happening, reflect upon what is changing. But the view is from bottom-up, with the idea that whether we like it or not, we have to live together, and therefore we have to regard the other in some way.”
The celebrated lensman Prashant Panjiar has captured “the visual landscape of India at the cusp of change” for his solo exhibition Pan India, to be held in New Delhi from September 25 to October 5 under the auspeices of Tasveer, the art and photo gallery.
In an interview with the Sunday Express, Panjiar, a former photographer with India Today, Time and Outlook magazines, talks about the state of the craft.
How would you define the present state of photojournalism in India?
In the 1980s, if you counted the top photographers in India, most were photojournalists. Now it will be hard to find many of them on the list. Media has changed a lot. In the new set-up, photography has suffered.
It takes some chutzpah for a bank to utter the word “integrity” in the august company of AIG, Lehman Brothers, Merill Lynch and Goldman Sachs. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) does so, but surprisingly uses the stout shoulders of the paparazzi to tell the world that it has it.
Watching TV used to be simple in the age of terrestrial broadcasting. The advent of satellite, cable and dish have made viewing a more pleasurable experience, of course, but there are also some unintended consequences.
This afternoon, after news emerged that India’s principal opposition party, the BJP, had sacked its leading light Jaswant Singh against the backdrop of his controversial book on Mohammed Ali Jinnah, direct-to-home Tata Sky viewers watching his exceedingly gracious press conference had a red button with an option to “Send Flowers” popping up on their screens.
Today, Homai Vyarawalla is 96 years of age. She was born in 1913. She met husband-to-be Maneckshaw when she was 13. Her first car’s licence plate was “DLD 13″. She sold her 1955 Fiat, her partner for 55 years, two months ago to lay her hands on the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano.
Tata Motors put her name on a priority list for the delivery of the car. Central Bank of India sent its clerk to collect the deposit amount of Rs 95,000. The first Tata Nano was delivered to a customer on July 17.
Ms Vyarawalla, who lives in Baroda, waits in eager anticipation:
“I stay alone and do everything on my own. I get things for myself from the market, and it is easier when you have a car. It is good on the company’s part which realised my urgency and came forward to offer it.”
Ms Vyarawalla still takes a few pictures, but as she said in a 2006 interview:
“I am busy getting old. Though I like to take general photographs of streets and common people, I am not into political photography in a milieu where dignity and discipline are no longer a virtue.”
Photograph: Homai Vyarawalla poses with her Speed Graphic Pacemaker Quarter Plate camera (courtesy Frontline)
The Bangalore edition of The Times of India turns 25 years old today. But the joy of a great journey from being No.4 to No.1—from climbing from a circulation of 20,000 copies to “over 500,000,” in the words of resident editor H.S. Balram—is slightly marred by a photograph on the front page of the “special report” marking the occasion.
The picture, shot by T.L. Ramaswamy, captures Bangalore’s most famous thoroughfare, Mahatma Gandhi Road, then and now. Then being 1984. Among the hoardings dotting the buildings is a hoarding for the Korean company, Lucky Goldstar alias LG.
The Ramnath Goenka Memorial Foundation, named after the founder of the Indian Express group, is inviting entries for the 2009 India Press Photo awards for excellence in photo journalism.
There are five prizes on offer. The picture of the year will get Rs 1.5 lakh, and the best pictures for spot news, general news, sports, and arts and entertainment, will respectively receive Rs 1 lakh each.
The last date for submission of entries is 31 August 2009.
Journalists marrying movie stars and celebrities is not unheard-of but is not routine.
The editor of San Francisco ChroniclePhil Bronstein did a stint as Mr Sharon Stone, and various Hollywood flicks (think Roman Holiday) have also immortalised celluloid romances between hacks and bold-faced name.
But generally the scrappy job and miserable pay, not to speak of curmudgeonly faces, have rendered journalists unmarketable on the romance/ marriage market.
“Not tonight, darling, I have a deadline.”
Take a bow, Che Kurien.
The editor of the Indian edition of the men’s magazine GQ is rumoured to have tied the knot with the starlet Antara Mali. Antara, the daughter of the film photographer Jagadish Mali, was the muse of the Bollywood movie maker Ram Gopal Varma.
Kurien was earlier with Reuters, Time Out and the Indian Express.
Given the kind of space, importance and attention newspapers, magazines and websites give photographs these days, it would not be unfair to say that the just-concluded general elections was visually below-par. There was no stellar frame, no standout picture, no large canvas frame that sticks in the mind’s eye.
‘Astro’ Mohan (in picture, left) of the Kannada daily Udayavani was one of the few to buck the trend. In Udupi, Mohan managed to capture the Karnataka BJP president D.V. Sadananda Gowda “begging” for votes in a commuter bus, while a real beggar was begging for alms alongside.
The picture has won the first prize in the Shooter photo competition organised by the online photo community, Fotoflock. The well-known photographer Fawzan Husain chose the winners.
“It’s a very timely shot where the photographer has been able to shoot people from two different walks of life doing the same thing in a bus. Very rarely does one come across this kind of a situation,” reads the citation.
For his rigours, Mohan has won the Epson Stylus Photo TX700W.
For the record, Sadananda Gowda won the elections; the fate of the beggar is not known.
The editor of the Indian edition of the men’s magazine GQ is rumoured to have 
