Snapshots of life

Hunting down the photographer is no cakewalk though. He scampers about setting up the lighting for the exhibition—a portrait of rakish recklessness in his charcoal shirt and slightly tousled hair with a streak of grey that lends gravitas and a touch of the erudite to his profile. He then makes a detour to his room. Then there is the customary task of flinging greetings to the guests. Finally,after a good amount of stealthy stalking we manage to perch him on a marble slab near the studio.

He admits that exhibiting at the Chivas Studio— a first time initiative to get a mélange of creative art from photography and sculpture to fashion under one roof—was completely unplanned as he is “normally too reclusive for such corporate-funded extravaganza”.

That perhaps gives a hint of the 50-year-old self-taught photographer’s irreverence towards social mores— whether it was being arrested on charges of obscenity in connection with the Tuff Shoes ad (“which put me through 14 years of torture,” he says about the red tape and the court battles) or his controversial book Women published in 1996—a collection of portraits and nudes of urban women.

“I had nothing to be ashamed of as my work was never some cellophane-wrapped sleaze production,” he reiterates although he does admit that photographing nudes is challenging in many ways. “It is an explosive place where the woman is exposed at her most vulnerable. It would be hypocritical on my part to say that the atmosphere is completely antiseptic. What is necessary is to treat the woman with respect and sublimate any kind of sexual tension you might be feeling and direct it towards the picture.”

Many of his portraits are of longtime girlfriend,supermodel Lakshmi Menon. “I first met her on a computer screen,” he says with a sly smile. He saw her pictures that an agent had sent and immediately booked her for three shoots. “I found in her a kind of incredible potential which I had never seen before. We shared a certain chemistry which might not have happened with other photographers. She almost knew what I wanted before I knew it myself. I wasn’t ready to let that go personally or professionally.”

And judging by the attention he showers upon Menon who’s standing a little way off and looking dishy in a blue polka-dotted sheath and slacks,we’d say that the romance chemicals are still doing their little dance. He breaks off mid-sentence to ask her whether she’s bored to which she promptly agrees. He then faithfully promises to be with her in a few minutes.

Languidly rolling a Golden Virginia cigarette,he talks about juggling fashion shoots with artistic work such as his latest book,Edge of Faith,on Goan Catholic life. “One is soul-nourishing and the other is bank balance-nourishing,” he says with an explosive laugh that startles us with its suddenness and transforms his face,which a minute ago,was a veneer of poised sobriety. “I don’t have much clue about fashion. I don’t know when hemlines are rising or falling. But whether it is a beautiful supermodel or a Goan household,I try to bring a certain sensibility into my pictures.”

For someone who’s sparklingly eloquent and brutally honest by turns,he seems surprisingly obtuse when it comes to self-introspection. “I have no idea why people might like my photographs. I only know that I love what I do.”

Modesty is such a turn on.