Photography has become an extremely prevalent, if not imminent, aspect of life for anybody living in a technologically advanced environment. While it has been an amazing tool for connecting, educating, and entertaining people, photography has also shifted some of the focus from experiencing our lives to attempting to capture them. In her piece On Photography, Susan Sontag discusses the effect that the ability to capture our experiences has had on people. Being exposed to photographs of other peoples’ experiences can desensitize us to the content that is being shown, to extent. This desensitization can lead us to be disappointed in our own experiences if they do not entirely live up to or match the preconceptions of them that we develop by looking at photographs of them. Photographs not only capture some aspects of our experience, but I would argue that they do, in fact, interpret them to an extent. It is nearly impossible to capture every single aspect of an experience, and many do not even wish to do so. In today’s world where most people have cell phones in their pockets, many of us are tempted to capture the best aspects of our lives in order to create a virtual representation of them. Photographers are often focused on portraying whatever perspective of a given experience supports their agenda or views. For this reason, whenever we view a photograph, we are getting not only the image, but the frame and lens through which the photographer viewed it.
To my understanding, Raghubir Singh’s photography is not only beautiful and evocative, but also honest. He portrayed the people of India as kind, beautiful, and vibrant. Many of his subjects were not posing, or in some cases, even aware that they were being photographed. These pictures show many smiles, warm embraces, and moments of warm interaction between friends and family. His work was described as portraying “palpable humanism.” Singh’s choice of 35mm Kodachrome film highlighted the natural colors of his photographs, making them more vivid and especially accentuating the reds and blues. As Singh began moving away from the villages and into Bombay, his focus seemed to shift from the spirit of the places he was capturing to the spirit of the people. These later photographs showed more subjects aware of being photographed, many of them looking directly at the camera and some of them pointedly ignoring it. Singh’s portrayal of his subject showed the humanity behind a population that was likely not very well understood by people that had not lived there, perhaps bringing the world a little closer together. The warmth that could be seen in the people of post-colonial India showed the resilience and adaptability of the human spirit, a reminder that is very important in our troubling times.
Veronica Funk
I love how you pointed out the fact that the fact that India was so recently colonized plays a major role on the art and culture from the time of Singh’s art. I also hadn’t thought about how his art was subversively portraying not just the places of India, but the people and their everyday interactions. Nice post!
besos
Julie
I completely agree with you that Raghubir Singh’s work portrays a sense of honesty, since as you mentioned, all of his work seems to be raw and unorganized. I also think the terms “palpable humanism” are the closest I’ve seen anyone come to actually describing the gallery in a succinct manner. His photos reveal a side of humanity that highlights humans ability to thrive in subpar conditions, especially those of post-colonial India. Great blog!