Record Photos

The Q&A

Hi Karthik.  Thanks for taking the time to contribute to the Record Photos Blog. Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?

Hi. I’m a sports journalist, and I currently write about cricket for ESPNcricinfo. I grew up in Chennai, which was formerly known as Madras, and hence the name Madras Eye. Madras Eye is also a widely used colloquial term for conjunctivitis in India. Since moving out of Chennai, I’ve lived in Pune and Delhi and now I’m based in Bangalore. 

I came across your work on your Madraseye Tumblr.  All of your images there are set at night.  The one thing that drew me in was the vibrant colours the characters and the complex compositions .  Was the choice to shoot at night a conscious one, out of necessity or just how it happens?  What is it you look for in a composition?

When I started out, I was shooting during the day like most photographers. It sort of changed when I started using the 50mm f/1.8 lens, which allowed me to work in low light, and allowed me to shoot during my favourite time of day to walk around the streets. The more I shot at night, the more I enjoyed it, and the more my eye for night photography evolved. But yeah, it’s come to a point now where I simply think I don’t have an eye for daytime photography. Also, I’m colour-blind. I don’t know if that plays any part in my preferring to shoot at night, but maybe it does.

What do I look for in a composition? Definitely some sort of human presence, and an everydayness that’s lifted by light or shadow or colour or texture. All those things make me stop and point my camera at a scene. And then, if I’m lucky, I’ll get some sort of gesture or expression from the person or people in my viewfinder that lifts the photograph even higher.

Where are you at with your photography right now?  Is it something you do casually to please yourself or are you more purposeful than that?  How long have you been shooting like this?

Honestly, I’m not sure. I wouldn’t say I do it casually. I’m quite serious about it, but I’m not sure it’s going anywhere in particular. I’ve been into photography for around 5-6 years now, and I’ve become more passionate about it as I’ve gone along.

I sense that you are having to push the limits of the gear you are using to get some of your shots. What are you shooting the Madraseye work with?

I use a Nikon D40 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. It’s pretty basic gear, but I like it that it’s fairly small and lightweight, for an SLR, and allows me to be relatively unobtrusive in public places. I’m not massively fussed about what I’m shooting with, to be honest, as long as I’m comfortable with it and it gives me good results at night.

Do you set yourself any rules regarding cropping and post processing or is what comes out of the camera what we get?

I don’t have any hard and fast rules when it comes to cropping, but I try to avoid it as far as possible. Most of the photographs on Madras Eye are completely uncropped, even if it means there’s a distracting element at the edge of a frame or whatever. Post-processing, I do a little bit on Photoshop. Levels, curves, that sort of stuff, and mostly very little.

I can see certain points of reference in some of your shots.  The vibrant colours use of mirrors and multi subject compositions make me think of Alex Webb.  Do you have any influences in your photography or are you just out there going with the flow and doing what you do?

I’d never heard of Alex Webb till now, and I looked him up and yes, there’s definitely some sort of similarity between his photographs and mine – the frames within frames, the people chopped off at the waist or the neck, the shadows – except, obviously, his are so much more awesome. Do I have any influences? Not direct influences. I spend a lot of time looking through the work of people like Cartier-Bresson, Winogrand, Doisneau, Koudelka, Vivian Maier, Raghu Rai and so forth, and also a massive amount of photoblogs, and reading essays and stuff, and somewhere, subconsciously, there must be some sort of osmosis happening. 

What is the vibe you get shooting the streets of India at night?  Does it vary from region to region?  Are the people receptive to it or are photographers treated with some suspicion like can sometimes be the case in parts of the UK?

Generally, people in India are more curious than suspicious when they see someone taking photographs. So I get asked why I’m doing what I’m doing quite often, but most people are generally satisfied if I tell them it’s just a hobby. Yeah, occasionally there’s someone who objects or makes life difficult, but it’s fairly rare. It’s likelier, in fact, that people will ask you to take their picture.

But I’m talking mostly about men. There’s certainly way more men than women out on the streets at night, except in the more prosperous localities, which is one thing that’s common to most cities in India. I guess you can tell that from my photographs, although part of it is also because I’m a little less comfortable photographing women than I am photographing men. I feel a sort of unspoken disapproval. Maybe it doesn’t actually exist, but I feel it, and I’m trying to fight the feeling. I’m getting better at it, but I still have some way to go.  

What are you plans photographically over the coming year - if any?

I don’t have any plans, exactly, but I do want my work to find some sort of direction, maybe find some sort of subject or theme to explore in a photo essay. So far, I’ve been uncomfortable with the idea of trying to tell stories through my photographs, because it feels wrong to impose meanings on images, and it feels like it’ll take away from the unspoken things that photographs say. And I’m not a massive fan of documentary photography, where the photograph becomes less important than the subject of the photograph. But maybe I have to get over these things.  

Also, I’ve gotten myself an old Yashica rangefinder, and I’ll try to mess around with that a little and see what direction that takes me towards.

Any links you would like us to include? To your own stuff or back to other photographers that you follow that our readers might find interesting.