HYDERABAD: Indian architecture is one of the most beautiful around the world. But visiting all in one’s lifetime is no mean task. To make this easy for people and to showcase the beautiful architectural heritage of our country, well known photographer based out of Hyderabad K N Wasif has curated a book titled India’s Architectural Heritage, that has captured all the sites of our beautiful architecture of our country. CE speaks to him about the inspiration behind the coffee table book for people to enjoy the beauty of our country.
Reminiscing about the time that he started to shoot and how he could get shots of the heritage sites, he says,“I started this journey as a project. In 1998 when we were celebrating our 50 years of independence at that time, the ambassador of Saudi Arabia, Hamid Ansari called all the social workers and said we will celebrate this golden jubilee and we will have a programme every week and asked me to do a photo exhibition, but I did not have any pictures to showcase.
I used to spend a week or 10 days in every city and in 2005 I had my first show in Jeddah, Saudi which was my first break. From 1998 to 2012, I kept adding pictures to my collection. Now I have a big stock of architectural monument pictures. Each monument is shot in detail. This book is about 140 pages. I started this work when India was celebrating its golden jubilee and launched it on the occasion of Azadi ka Amrit Utsav.”
Mentioning about the idea of putting all of these pictures into a book, he says, “When I gathered many pictures there were too many pictures, I thought every time I couldn’t organise exhibitions to showcase my work and so I decided to make a book as it is easy for people to see a book.
This would also be a publicity to Indian tourism and that is the aim of publishing this book, to promote Indian tourism. My favourite project that I did was Qutub Minar. I loved to shoot this place and I have been here three to four times.
When I started work there were no digital cameras and when the digital cameras came I did my work again and what you see in the book is shot by the digital camera.” Further adding, “My plan is to print more than 1,000 copies and give it to all the libraries in India and Saudi Arabia. MA Nayeem who is an engineer and runs his own construction company in Saudi is helping me print copies and within the next two months, I will be printing more copies. In my next edition I will be giving a small description of all the monuments in the book so that people will have a clear understanding of the picture as well.”