We all have stories about how we spent our time during the multiple lockdowns these past two years. Some of us took up new hobbies while others found solace in meditation or binge-watching our favourite shows. For Dayanita Singh, it was rediscovering her work from the ’80s and early ’90s—a time when she did not yet consider herself a photographer. After winning the coveted Hasselblad Award this year, and having the largest institutional retrospective in Berlin, Singh has released her latest photo-novel titled Let's See.
Courtesy Dayanita Singh
It all started when Singh was gifted her first camera—a Pentax ME Super with a 50mm lens—by the German publisher Ernst Battenberg. “With this, I took photos of everything I could, trying to make a roll of film last as long as possible. I photographed my hostel roommates, friends, family members, weddings, funerals and a few familiar faces, basically capturing several moments and people who were in my life in the 1980s and ’90s,” says Singh.
Forgotten Memories
The photographer confesses that had it not been for the Covid lockdown, she wouldn’t have dug up archives of contact sheets from 40 years ago and found this treasure trove of images. “In those days, one hardly made prints of what they shot as it was simply too expensive. If you had money, you spent it on buying more film rolls so I only had contact sheets of the photos I took. Luckily, I had scanned all my contact sheets just before we went into lockdown, and got a chance to see them enlarged. I was amazed by the gentle tenderness of these images I captured when I wasn't even a photographer. This germinated the idea of putting them together in a book,” she adds.
Courtesy Dayanita Singh
Courtesy Dayanita Singh
A Stream of Consciousness
Flip through the book, and you notice how the entire photo-novel is filled with full-page images with nearly no text. Singh’s idea was to let the reader determine what the narrative is, with some hints thrown in to give it a structure. She says, “I don't want to interfere with your experience of the images. You can start from the front, from the middle or the back as it is a stream of consciousness. There is a mysterious quality in many of the photos where you wonder ‘what happened?’ or ‘what are they discussing?’ The more you look at the images, the more narratives you find.”
Courtesy Dayanita Singh
Courtesy Dayanita Singh
In the beginning, you see photos of friends and roommates that quickly give way to a section where one’s mane is in focus. Cops and guns are followed by images of children, family gatherings and even some prominent personalities. But the common thread running across these photographs is the proximity, the movement and the raw candidness you find in each of them. Nothing seems posed, and a closer look lets you build a story of what possibly was going on in each frame.
A Page-Turner
“I wondered if a book without text could become a page-turner, almost like a thriller novel with each image taking the story forward and then sliding it away. Just when you think you've got it, the rug is pulled from under your feet and you are moved on to something else. You can see deep emotional connections as well as fleeting glances that the camera captured even without my realisation,” reveals Singh. You witness funerals, weddings, birthday parties, even fashion events and music concerts but from Singh’s gaze. She loves to capture people during unguarded moments whether it is in the greenroom, backstage, their bedrooms, or in the midst of a conversation.
It took almost two years to bring this book to fruition but the exercise was a beautiful walk down memory lane of simpler times. “One of the best things I realised while putting this together was the fact that most of the people featured in the book are still in my life, and so, in a way, this is like a memoir of my life from that time,” she concludes.
‘Let’s See’ by Dayanita Singh is published by Steidl and a signed copy can be bought online on ARTISANS’ website
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