KOCHI: “Nature talks to each one of us in several ways. You will be able to experience it when you observe it keenly,” says photographer Gopalakrishnan Nair who is organising a week-long exhibition ‘Prakrithiyude Vikruthi’ at Vyloppilli Samskrithi Bhavan, Thiruvananthapuram.
Gopalakrishnan began to observe various shapes of trees during his tryst in New Delhi. “I observed shapes of the human body naturally evolved on a tree during a morning walk at a garden near the India Gate. This inspired me to search for shapes in trees and I was successful in finding such shapes,” says Gopalakrishnan.
The artist began to capture pictures with a Yashica film camera in the 1980s when he was working with the Ministry of Finance in Shimla. “The hills, mountains and snow attracted me to photography,” says Gopalakrishnan. Later, he moved to New Delhi to work for LIC. He learnt photography from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. “Life in New Delhi is different from that in Shimla. After moving to New Delhi, I began to concentrate on street photography,” he says.
The photographer has also done series on the lives of fishermen in Kerala, women at work, the history and freedom fighters of Kodungallur. Taking inspiration from Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, he worked on nude photography and exhibited it in New Delhi titled as ‘Human body: Light and Shade’. He began to organise exhibitions from 1996.