A new look at India

Travel photographer Richard I’Anson presents a fascinating collection of images from India, JYOTI SHANKAR reports.

Someone once remarked that “a photography class should be a requirement in all educational programs because it makes you see the world rather than just look at it”. A good photographer can make you look at familiar places and everyday objects as though you had never seen them before. You ponder over the details captured and the picture can transport you miles away. This is what I felt when leafing through the pages of Richard I’Anson’s lavishly produced, voluminous photo book on India, India – Essential encounters. He sees the extraordinary in the mundane, capturing vignettes from everyday life as it throbs about in the streets of India. Of course, he also includes pictures of well-known monuments like the Taj Mahal or Charminar.

In 1986 Richard I’Anson (pronounced eye an-son) made his first trip from London to India. It was for only 6 days and he visited Kashmir and Ladakh. He was so enamoured by the beauty and diversity he saw, that he decided to produce a book about his trip. Reject letters from publishers at that point and 30 odd trips to India later, he has brought his dream project into fruition with the release of this latest book.

Meet Richard I’Anson, a freelance photographer who has built a career on his twin passions for travel and photography. Ever since he received his first camera as a gift from his parents when he was 16, he has been infatuated with photography.

The book was launched in Sydney last month at the Tap Art Gallery in Paddington by World Expeditions, with whom Richard has been involved for a long time.

At the release Richard said, “India is such an exhilarating place for a travel photographer… the pictures I take are an emotional and physical response to the moment.” He chose a few of his favourite pictures exhibited around the gallery to tell the stories behind them. “Expect the unexpected in India, always”, he said.

There may have been many frustrations on his journeys into the country, but what Richard recalls are the sublime moments when time seems to stop, like when he captured the sunrise over the Himalayas, the chanting monks at Bodh Gaya, or the eternal beauty of Taj Mahal early one morning. In his effort to capture his shot of the tigers at Ranthambore, he spent over 21 hours of safari and had not seen a single tiger. He joked that just as he was about to give up and the thought fleeted through his mind about getting the elusive animal’s shot at the Melbourne Zoo instead, the Royal Bengal tiger deigned to make an appearance. He got some good shots before it vanished into wilderness again. So though his shots may look like happy accidents, just being in the right place at the right time may take hours or days of meticulous planning.

The Allahabad Kumbh Mela of 2001 was another surreal experience for Richard. “It was amazing to be one of the 30 million people who had congregated at the place, one of the largest ever gatherings of men on earth”, he said. He missed the event in 1989 and for something that is as rare as once every 12 years, he realised that for a good photographer it is good to do proper research before any work.

One of his favourite shots is of an old woman sitting in the waters at Puri beach, her saree twirling all round her. The picture looks innocuous enough but Richard had a story to tell. He spoke about how many families come from afar to Puri to see its beaches and temples. While families frolicked on the beach, a frail member of one family was washed away by the rip and literally landed at Richard’s feet as he was photographing and that’s how he got this classic shot.

When queried, Richard says that all the 44 destinations highlighted in his book are his favourites, but there’s a special place in his heart for Ladakh, which he says is geographically and culturally very different from the rest of India. In fact, Richard leads a trip to Ladakh through World Expeditions in the month of September 2011. The book has 650 colour photographs, accompanied by text by acclaimed travel writer Sarina Singh. The foreword is written by actress Nandita Das, who admits frankly that she was initially sceptical if a foreigner’s interpretation of India would amount to stereotyping but was happily surprised to find that Richard’s images rekindled her memories of places visited – “sometimes capturing them just as I remembered and sometimes coming across as more breathtaking than I recalled”.

A seasoned traveller, Richard believes that travelling to take photographs is very different to taking photos while travelling. As he says in his introduction to his book, “The unwanted attention of touts, rickshaw and taxi drivers, roaming vendors and beggars, can be wearing and challenging for the occasional visitor but pales into insignificance against the instinctive friendliness and welcoming nature of most interactions.”

Yet, according to him, India can be a relentless assault on the senses. “Those who are open, or better still, embrace the situation, will find India at its pulsating best”.

Richard’s work is published worldwide in books, magazines, newspapers, brochures, calendars, posters, cards and websites. Richard has himself published books like Chasing Rickshaws, Rice Trails, Travel Photography, Australia: 42 Great Landscape Experiences and Nepal, among others. He says he aims to capture the reality of the place as he sees it and “endeavours to shoot strong individual images that build on each other to create a comprehensive coverage of a destination or topic, so that viewers can get a sense of what it’s like to be there.”