Turning ordinary into extraordinary

The monochromes are full of emotions and it is no wonder that Manfred has been continuously in the "Who’s Who" list of top overseas monochrome print exhibitions by the Photographic Society of America since 1981. For he has crafted his pictures in such a manner that they have attained timelessness and a spaceless character, taking permanence in the beholders’ minds.

And from Calcutta, we get to see some of the best manuouvred pictures and prime examples in landscape clicking. Benu Sen, president of the PAD, has two things to his credit, his compilation of women’s moods based on his studies in female psychology and the oldest and much-forgotten about photo gram. The two frames carrying photo gram images take you back many years and make one wonder at this photographic technique without the use of a camera.

Then, on an ethereal plain, we get to see Partha Sarathi Sarkar’s captivating pictures of serenity in black and white. The frames give an insight to the viewers into the changes that had been happening in this art of the lens and the wide arenas available to an innovative cameraman.

Our own lens men also do not disappoint either, though there is not much of innovation or creation, but the same old flatness in them. Nevertheless, there was this classic collection from Adit Agarwala who had a fine blend of elements with humans thrown in at random.

There are quite a few experimentations too, as in the works of Maninder Singh, who has done digital photography and in those of Rakesh Syal, who has a play of fluroscent light. It was an interesting display, a wide-ranging one too, that one got at the Kala Bhawan. Contrary to normal shows here, one could not afford to run through the frames for each one, whether it was Navneet Saxena’s "mercurial” landscape or Vikramjit Singh’s "time-standing-still” or in Sanjay Kaushal’s well-composed take-off of a Piazza feature, had a pulling power of its own. They made you pause, ponder and pass.