KOCHI: Getting across a message sometimes needs a medium. For Arun Raj R Nair, it is photography.
His conceptual photography series has been garnering a lot of attention due to their uniqueness besides the themes. However, there is one thread that ties many of works. It is none other than the issues faced by women in society.
Arun, who hails from Thiruvananthapuram, uses his lens to capture the stories of women who find themselves holding the short stick that life has gifted them. “I am not a content creator,” he says. “I don’t like to picture myself as one though people mistake my work as something akin to content creation. I consider myself a teller of the stories of real people.”
Arun took to conceptual photography during the pandemic. “It was the time when everyone was confined indoors. ‘Work from home’ has become the norm,” says the techie. “I wanted to highlight the plight of women in this patriarchal society.”
Arun’s works received bouquets and brickbats on social media. “Many men commented that I was portraying women’s issues just to get ‘likes’ and followers. I answered them with a conceptual shoot on Fathers’ Day,” he says.
Arun recalls one of his series centred around a sex worker. “I had to struggle a lot for this shoot. Nearly all the women I approached refused to be models for the work. Finally, a sex worker agreed. When I spoke to her, I got the real picture of what happens in their lives,” he says.
Arun’s latest work is about the plight of children living on the streets. “It is becoming viral,” he says. The frames tell the story of a street child adopted by a woman. “The child was given a home and care. However, when he grows up, he ends up abusing street children,” explains Arun, who was upset after watching a recent viral video in which a man in Kozhikode kicks a nomadic boy for leaning on his car.