Interview or introspection... A ‘Self-discovery’, is it!

After a long and wonderful chat with Barry Sir (Mr. Barry John) earlier this afternoon, wasn't feeling too keen to do much... Guess, Friday the 13th, had a role to play. :-)

While aimlessly, surfing the net a while back, I stumbled upon an interview of mine, published on http://collage.visageimages.com/?p=225 (“Collage”, Visageimages’ online publication).

The interview seemed like more of introspection, than anything else… A ‘Self-discovery’, if I may say so.

Thought it would be nice to share it with you. May be, this is the Ritam, you might have been looking for, but hadn’t found yet, in the Me, that you have known, so far.

Home » Interviews Ritam Banerjee 11 February 2009

Ritam Banerjee left home to study photography at Pune’s Fergusson College and has been a prolific lensman capturing the world around us in stunning detail, ever since. Photography, according to Ritam Banerjee, is all about making positives out of negatives.

How did you get started in photography?

My photography started in college, with a basic 35 mm SLR camera with a 50mm normal lens and two rolls of negative film. Since then, the world has transformed into an array of faces, objects, moods and silences for me to capture on my lens.

What artists have influenced your work?

Just naming a few creators of art would be disrespect to all those artists who have been knowingly or unknowingly influencing my inner senses through their work and their presence in flesh and blood.

Its not just artists, but everyone around me - my family, my friends, my clients and at times, even those I don’t know but I just happen to come across on the streets who happen to influence me.

What do you like shooting the most?

Moments in time… any moment that freezes pictorially within the space of my frame.
What made you want to specialize in this category?

Photography is all about making positives out of negatives. Why limit the ‘positivity’ to a specific subject of so-called specialization! I am still trying to specialize in making anything and everything picturesque and photogenic. My pictures in the Visage Collection and those on my website - www.ritambanerjee.com bear testimony to the same.

What is the most demanding shot you have ever done?

Photography is not manual labor. Photography is the creation of an art-form with the tools of science. Just like art is relative, its demands are relative too. It’s not important to measure the demands of a shot by the amount of sweat, money, time, et al spent on creating the picture. What is important is to create the picture that demands attention on its own caliber.
What is your favourite picture?

The day a mother of two infants starts having her own favorite baby, I would start having ONE favorite picture of my own.
What’s the best use of a picture that you have ever seen (an ad, a book cover, etc…)?

If a picture speaks out the purpose of its usage on its own accord, I believe it’s been used to its best. If a picture in an advertisement can sell the product, if a picture on the cover of a book can draw the reader to the story, if a picture on a wall can enhance the look of a room, if a picture from the warfront published in the morning daily covers the news to the point of compelling the superpowers to call for ceasefire, if a picture in an album takes us back to our wonder years, if a picture in a tourism catalog beckons us to the extent of making us travel to the destination, if a picture in a book of history transports us back to the era bygone, if a picture helps us to discover the world beyond the visibility of the naked eye… need I say more! How about letting our pictures speak instead?