Arup Biswas Photography
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On "Songs of Silence"
Have you ever listened to the song by the blooming dogwoods tree shrouded by a thin veil of mist, or the melody when the sun breaks through the dense black clouds and illuminates the colorful hills beneath? These are the moments that I strived to capture in this series of photographs. Many times I would spend hours in a location before I could listen to the landscape. To create these photographs, I often revisit a location many times until I am happy with the capture.
Once I have a satisfactory capture, the next stage is to print it. This often takes a very long time, some times many months, before I come up with a print that can express my visualization of the image. In this respect, I am a strong believer of Ansel Adam’s oft-quoted statement: "Negative is the score and print is the performance." Musicians will interpret the same score in myriad ways.
I capture the images in color, as I believe that color adds a strong emotional dimension to the landscape. At the same time, color can be abused to the extent that it can ruin the overall harmony of the image. I approach making a photograph similar to a symphony conductor trying to orchestrate different instruments to create a harmonious piece. In the case of a photograph, these elements are line, form, texture, luminosity, color hue and saturation: a successful photograph, in my opinion, is a perfect fusion of these elements.
My hope is that these photographs appeal to a large audience at different levels of appreciation. My attempt is to create not merely pretty images, but transformational images that transcend the literal meanings and appeals to our innermost feelings.
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On “Strange Tales of a Black Bird”
Recently, I have embarked upon creating a new series of photographs. These photographs employ digital montages based on a theme. My first series, “Strange Tales of a Black Bird”, narrates the story of the environmental destruction of our planet through the eyes of a penguin. In these photographs I use various metaphors, dancers and their expressions in a landscape setting to expand upon a central idea. These composites are made of picture elements taken from many photographs, all of which are taken by me. This work is very different from my “Songs of Silence” series, which focuses on capturing the feeling of the landscape. This series strives to create something that is not there, challenging the viewer to think. In other words, the “Songs of Silence” is for the heart and “Black Bird” is for the head. I love both of these lines of work. They each fulfill different needs of an individual. |