Friends and Their Friends

“Friends and their Friends”

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         It’s a private chapter of my written diary. They are from a personal space of my world. These images are a pathway to my world and mirror my own gaze. I unknowingly started writing this diary in my quaint town, nestled between the Aravallis in 2006.

         

        Shifting to Delhi in 2008 when I was 18, I had these coming of age adventures and various changing dynamics within different personalities I met. I developed a new vision of looking at relationships. I sometimes don't know how I feel about someone until I take his or her picture. I photograph directly from my world. I don't select Friends and their Friends in order to put them in my diary but just to understand their psyche to start with. In this process, I came across situations, circumstances that would put me in doubt and conflict. In the metropolitan city, I saw new relationships and the myriads of expression they held.

         I'd want no camera between me and my Friends and their Friends. These images come from relationships, not observation. There is a popular notion that the photographer is by nature a voyeur. I want to photograph exactly what my world looks like, without glamorization, without glorification. A photograph allows an endless flow of connections. It enables me to remember. images can be made, relationships can't. I want to preserve the sense of peoples' lives with the strength and beauty I see in them.

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        This body of work is my diary, my relationships, and my history.