/chaos and order
The universe tends towards chaos and entropy. Don’t believe it? Well, stand in front of a tall and crowning monument and try framing the structure while focussing on impeccable alignment. You’ll know exactly what I am talking about. During this photo walk, I learned how tricky it is to frame grandiose buildings. If you straighten the pillar, the arc feels crooked and if you horizontally align the latter, the former appears lopsided. It’s like it wants chaos.
But if you eyeball each and every corner of the frame, you can restore order momentarily, just enough for you to make a picture. As it happened with me while framing this entrance to the Chota Imambara Compound. The pathway is adorned by 3 impressive extradimensional open gates that have beautiful arcs and pillars. The magnificent thing about this entrance is that if you stand at the right spot, the apex of the main compound’s dome aligns perfectly with the centre of the arc of all 3 gates. But you have to stand at ‘the’ right spot. An inch here or there and you guessed it, chaos.
It took me some moving around, squatting in weird positions, and dancing around like a monkey to find that spot and once I had it, I shot in burst. Cause, hey, you can hold your squat for only so long. There was a flock of birds soaring in the sky and I captured one of them in the frame carrying its lunch between its beak.
So yes, the universe tends towards chaos and entropy. That is basic thermodynamics. Maybe it is basic existence too. But there is nothing that a determined heart cannot do. Here’s to chaos and here’s to finding order in it.
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/take a walk
For the next frame of the collection, I want you to take a walk with me. We have just entered the Bada Imambara complex. We see an exodus of people rushing towards the primary attraction, but we’re not gonna join that pack. Instead, we’re going to turn left towards the empty compartment adorned by foliage. And now, we’ll observe - observe the arch, observe the pattern, observe the colours and observe ourselves at the moment.
Fragile, exquisite, undaunted by the threat of not being the centre of attraction, this section of the compound is a laughing refutation of “dull”, and so it becomes an implicit symbol of interesting for the world of photographic seeing. I don’t know whether that is what the architect of Asaf-ud-Duala had in mind when they designed this structure, but that, it seems to me, is what the compound itself says.
Now we’re going to try to capture the essence of this beautiful place through a frame. We take out our mobile phone, watch the play of light and shadows as we set the frame, we hold our breaths and press the shutter. That’s it. We have preserved that moment in a neat slice of time through our cameras. Sure, the timing could have been a little better and the person walking could have been in the centre but remember, we took the road which no one takes and the beauty of it is in photographic seeing and not mechanical reproduction.
I hope you liked the walk. :)
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/a secret window
While every person and culture interpret symbols and archetypes differently, there is a common thread that binds them together. Architecture serves as a great example of that. Here is a photo of a small mosque that’s present inside the Chota Imambara compound. When I walked towards it and started composing my shot, I felt that it wasn’t symbolic - it was conveying the gist but it wasn’t the gestalt frame that I thought it’d be.
So I took a walk around it, tried different angles, perspectives and finally found one that came close to the objective representation of the metaphorical symbolism I had in mind. Although the frame isn’t extraordinary I feel it represents the act of praying perfectly, for when we pray, a window opens up in the metaphorical oblivion and we connect with the universe through it.
I’d like to paraphrase a few lines from ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ to explain this better:
Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be a new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education. Prayers are like a secret window into ourselves that tunnels through the universe. In those silent moments, we understand ourselves better.
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/it’s the little things
The photographer’s ardor for a subject has no essential relation to its content or value, that which makes a subject classifiable. It is, above all, an affirmation of the subject’s thereness; its rightness (the rightness of a look on a face, in this case - the rightness of the arrangement of a group of objects), which is the equivalent of the collector’s standard of genuineness; its quiddity — whatever qualities make it unique.
Some monuments are the center of attraction and there are beautiful structures, such as this one, which is often thought of as a novelty. They don’t attract impressive footfall but they have it all, in their might. It’s their tiny details that make them unique. And if I could draw a parallel from this to our lives, it’d go something like this - 'If all that a person does or thinks is of consequence, it becomes arbitrary to treat some moments in life as important and most as trivial. But in the process, we miss the little things that make us, inspire us, fuel us - the little things that make us human.'
So, let’s try to appreciate these things just a little bit more - to be like this structure on the side of the Imambara compound which tends to let the viewer see itself. I tried to make this photo convey this message. I wanted it not to preach. I wanted it not to pose as art. I wanted the viewer to appreciate it for what it is.
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This collection of short essays were wrtitten to accompany the frames made during a solo expedition of the Imambara Complexes located at Lucknow, India.
