He clicks, with Leica

Of city-based photographer Ajay Bhatia’s random experiments with camera, a defining moment that continues to describe his artworks came along with a technological regression of sorts.

So much for your fancy digital cameras, and mobile phones, this 55-year old has taken to a camera by Leica, a German company that specialises in high-end and expensive cameras since 1914, to click photographs of Chandigarh’s architecture and its public spaces romancing the nature. At the art gallery in Alliance Française de Chandigarh, Ajay tells us about the trivia that defines the struggles of a photographer, especially in the world that’s dominated by social media’s selfie experts, DSLRs, and Instagram’s ingenious filters that has made a photographer out of anyone smart enough to operate a smartphone.

“I have operated all sorts of cameras, including the ones by Nikon, Canon, Sony, and Fuji. But during my creative exploits, I found that the more I went on to click with cameras made in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, the better was the quality of pictures. For instance, the Leica camera that I am using at the moment has lenses made in the 60s and 70s. It’s a rangefinder camera that has a digital sensor instead of films,” says Ajay. 

While taking us around the gallery, he shows us pictures of Chandigarh’s Capitol Complex, including The Open Hand, The Secretariat, The High Court, and the Assembly Hall. Most of these pictures explored Le Corbusier’s iconic experimentation with brutalist architecture and brise soleil, the technique of creating sun shading structures in the building, like Tower of Shadows at the Capitol Complex. 

“I love exploring Chandigarh’s architecture, and the fact that I document it is my way of paying homage to the city that gave me home and livelihood since I arrived here at the age of 15,” he says.

Of course, Ajay’s dexterity remains in finding an unusual perspective to otherwise common sights, like the way he draws our focus on the snake inscribed in one of the pillars inside the Vidhan Sabha building that overlooks a pond at the complex. But we wonder if he finds buyers for his artwork, especially in the day and age of digital download. 

“When you talk of earning your bread and butter through photography, the only way is wedding photography, fashion photography, and photo journalism, but I don’t really have many takers for these photographs. Before 1920s camera was for the elites but two German companies, Leica and Zeiss, made affordable cameras for the masses. In 70s DSLRs took over and the perspective shifted... the learning of the film-era photographers were fed as algorithms in DSLRs. However, I am a purist and my photographs are an extension of who I am. I made do with the money I saved from the catering business. I shut down years ago to take up photography and pursue it professionally since 2012,” he smiles half-heartedly. In retrospect, and keeping with the title of his exhibition—remembrance of time past, we wonder if we should have asked him to say ‘cheese’!

On till May 15.

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