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While photographs can be the easiest way of traveling back into happy nostalgic memories, they also have the power to evoke and stir strong emotions within us. If it wasn’t for images in the modern world, a lot of what happens could be brushed away from collective consciousness forever. Especially in regions like Palestine, Kashmir, the refugee crisis around the globe and areas of conflict. It is only through pictures that we truly develop an empathetic understanding of the extent of human devastation.
More often than not photographs can function as objective descriptions about phenomenological events as well as visual metaphors that elucidate societal and human truths. It is this interrogation of human lives that documentary photographers take upon themselves. Among the many, that are doing brilliant work, these are three homegrown documentary photographers that caught our attention.
I. Ayan Biswas
A deep curiosity about the world and the importance of firsthand experience thereof translates wonderfully into frames for documentary photographer Ayan Biswas who is living with locals in Ladakh and documenting their lives.
Focusing on the details and atmospheres at the same time, his portraits are able to capture the subjects in their moments of being. Exploring lesser known parts of Ladakh, his pictures offer an insight into the daily lives of the locals.
II. Indrajit Khambe
With an exceptional ability to communicate an ethos of place through images, documentary photographer Indrajit Khambe is based out of Sindhudurga, a beautiful district situated near the Goa-Maharashtra border. Inspired by the works of Josef Koudelka, Robert Frank, Garry Winogrand, and Raghu Rai, his work captures subjects from his home state.
Among his works are explorations of the traditional theatre form of the Konkan region, monsoon farming around Sindhudurga, landscape of Hampi and the akharas of Kolhapur. His approach to photography is refreshingly straightforward, unpretentious, and captures the region of Sindhudurga in all its abundance.
III. Sanna Irshad Mattoo
In one of the most densely militarized regions on earth, life takes place through barbed wires, checkpoints, internet blockades, and a common sight of uniform-donned men. It is this world of violence and the normality of existence under the occupation that Pulitzer award winning documentary photographer Sanna Irshad Mattoo captures.
In making images of a world that feels unflinchingly real and yet eerily all too real she is able to capture a sense of dispassionate distance and empathetic compassion as her images force one to mediate and introspect.
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