Internationally recognised documentary filmmaker and photojournalist, Amit Madheshiya always asks a fundamental question, “Why do I do what I do?”, making people in the room ponder.
With a smile on his face, he talked about photography in the digital age as a resource person in a talk titled, “Why make photographs?”
For him, photography is communication. Creating art is closely tied with cultural identity where human beings connect with each other to tell stories – See, I was here!
As paintings and images intertwined, he embarked on a visual journey, taking us through images of cave art; paintings of Pieter Brugel, Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer; and images of Henri Cartier Bresson, Raghu Rai, Raghubir Singh, Eugene Smith and Homai Vyaravalla, among others. “This is a process I go through and learn from, in trying to find an answer to, ‘Why do I do what I do?’”
Pointing to an old cave painting in Sulawesi, Indonesia, that was made 40,000 years ago, he talked about hand stencils and simple geometric shapes.
It makes one think about time. Within the shadowy nooks of caves around the globe, is a moment captured, coloured in multi-hued narratives. Conversely, it also tells us about what space meant for our human ancestors then.
His influences were stalwarts who contributed to painting and photography. Bresson, for instance, possessed a keen eye for lyrical detailing in his images. Madheshiya referred to his penchant for being at the right place at the right time; his images defined the “decisive moment”.
Referring to Brugel’s 16th century painting The Hunters in the Snow, he said, “Look at how he positions the elements”. While Rembrandt is the “master of light”, Vermeer’s photo-realism marked a rapid evolution in the realm of painting.
Images of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi through the lens of Rai; the chaos of India reflected in Singh’s colour images; the natural lights of Smith’s photo essays; and the intimate images of colonial/post-colonial India by Homai Vyarawalla, the lone woman photojournalist in a male dominated world, opened up a world.
Madheshiya’s own approach to image making revealed a rare sensitivity. At the heart of his photojournalism are common people. He co-directed his debut documentary, The Cinema travellers in 2016, which bagged numerous global awards, with Shirley Abraham.
The images are at once insightful, emotional and cerebral. “My documentary is about cinema that travels to the villages of Maharashtra. The villagers sit on the ground and watch cinema. At the heart of this work, are portraits of the patrons – how people watch films. I thought of engaging with their expressions.”
Madheshiya reflected on the difference between looking and seeing. Is seeing difficult?
Looking, in his words, is a physical act but seeing is about perception, critical engagement and observation. When looking at a potential image, he remembers his teachers across time, eventually making the choice “to go beyond looking”.
A perceptive gaze is truly reflected in his 2021 project, The Great Abandonment, made with co-director, Abraham. It documented the COVID-19 lockdown. A deeply political film, it captured (for posterity) the sea of people on the move.
“What was happening in the streets of Bombay and New Delhi was a political act. Thousands of people who were walking were forced by the circumstances, shaped by the lack of infrastructure and proper planning. They did not walk out of their will,” he said.
In the age of media trials, endless trolling and being anti-criticism, a documentary like this one is courage personified.
“Storytelling must continue. The real value of this film will be revealed 20 years from now when we can look back and see where we went wrong. We learn from great filmmakers who work with great limitations and in all kinds of censorship,” he added, citing the work of Iranian and Russian filmmakers, who work with metaphors and different tools, subverting expectations, if not directly confrontational.
With the session coming to an end, those from the audience asked him if photography is dead in the digital age. “No,” he responded, adding evolution transforms existing art forms, never completely kill them.