As a 14-year-old, Krishnendu Chatterjee asked his father for a camera on the pretext that his first visit to Kashmir could not be made without one. Incidentally, that wasn’t his last visit to Kashmir nor the last time he begged his father for camera. Chatterjee knew that day he would become a photographer—big or small, it didn’t matter because for him, these labels are limiting in so many ways.
His latest exhibition, Delhi-Its Own Way: Documentary street photography, slated to take place at Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, captures the fractals of momentary stillness that thread the metropolitan.
Pursuing his theme through the medium of documentary street photography, Chatterjee has sought to capture the smaller moments that mirror the larger picture. ‘‘It showcases a city that even as it is accepting the more liberal, contemporary strains of living, it can prove to be quite challenging in terms of a place to survive in. On the one hand, the city with its advancement in technology and way of life, facilitates an easy lifestyle. At the same time, those very advancements come at a cost that have to be factored in by one who favours them,” he says adding, ‘‘Delhi is an elite capital extolled in the global pages as a must-visit tourist destination for its big markets like Chandni Chowk, forts and ruins, handicrafts, mandirs, masjids, gurdwaras and churches. But the essence of what Delhi is, lies out there on the streets—the food, way of life, issues to be grappled with and others. For the one who knows, understands and accepts, Delhi is home.”
Dates: On till August 31
Venue: Delhi ‘O’ Delhi Foyer, Habitat World, IHC, Lodhi Road
Time: 10 am to 8 pm.