Photos Essays can be categorized into  two or three types. The most common are based  on political, social and humanitarian themes. Their content and context, deal with either a crisis, a disaster,a truth, a phenomenon, a revolution, an event etc in our civilization. The observer is presented with a story that is far from his normal life. Strangely this distance,measured in the realm of imagination, makes photo essays fascinating. The observer aided by the text and the frames in the photo essay, relates to the vivid story and relives the event, crisis etc. Here the theme is central to the whole experience.

Through the amazing Photo essay on Street Children, If I were rain, I discover the power of photo essays…

A friend’s visit coupled with a chance buy of a 50 mm f/1.8 are the factors for writing this entry. Selective Focusing…

Illusion #2002

The Eye, is perhaps my most fascinating shape, symbol, object and subject. Its hard to describe it, for i assign varied meanging based on sublitties of shape and form. Of the style of depiction and of significance as a subject, the eye is intriguing and abstract. In my imagination, its meaning complicated and surreal. Serving as a reflection, a contemplation, a statement of both,sight as sense and sense as psychic element. To me it represents the self, as window to the soul. On one level the self consciousness, and on the other, a symbol of the vast fabric of mass consciousness. The gaze forever resonating with line of thought prevalent.

Across the years, its essence has being growing, structuring within my thoughts. And in some ways, depicts the threads of my thoughts across time. And the fascination continues..

Fleeting Moments #2004

Trampled by Destiny #2008

Gaze #2003

Aching head #2009

Anger #2009

Anger, among the many definitions wiki could dish out, Buddhist interpretation is the closest to my experience ” Being unable to bear the object …” . The perceived burden, under which the mind, glares at the unjust world around, locked in an adamant, arrogant perspective.  Episodic Anger, the term coined by modern psychology, is defined as an reaction to perceived deliberate harm or unfair treatment by others. When anger grips the mind, its insanity. Its not the violence, but the harshness of judgment that scares me. The mind perceives only one perspective, nothing else matters. Chaos seizes me, the internal parent whipping the Ego, as it questions and exaggerates the unfairness. A few blinks or a few calm breathes could ease the distortion, provide the necessary distance from this raging inferno. However, besieged in this emotion, the mind stares. The incessant questioning, muffles all rationality and kindness. Anger..

Anger dissipates, when the distortion is removed. When the voices go silent. The mind rephrases the very questions, and blaring injustice fades into compassion. The inverted perspective leads to reflection..The mind realigns its perspective, the world seems less harsh…the perpetual drama surfaces. The games the mind plays, are very hard to understand. For they are rooted in the sub-conscious. The criss-crossed distortion of the self appears, which was the cause for Anger.

“A man is about as big as the things that make him angry” Winston Churhchill

The immediate moments after the seize of Anger subsides, is an agony of a different kind. The mind stares into the distortion of it’s own self…