Exhibition
Modernism of the Ganges by Raghubir Singh
The Raghubir Singh, Modernism of the Ganges, Exhibition is held at the MET Museum on the second floor. When entering the exhibition you are stopped by a large wall in front, where you find the name of the exhibition and the photographer’s name. On your right you have a map of India with the names of all the cities and villages in which Singhs photography took place. Right next to it there is a three paragraph biography of Singh. the room is divided into different sections, each sections tells a different story about the location, Singh’s inspiration, and his journey. The first room on the right has a collection of Singh’s early work in which he explores the villages, cities, and sacred sites along the Ganges river. The work in this room is in color and the photos vary in size.
Singh’s photography takes place at his native country, India. His work was done with a camera in hand. You are able to tell the freedom that this gave him when it came to capturing the streets of India and the decisive moments. His Photography in this room shows a variety of techniques. Some were taken using a top view, a low view, diagonal lines, the rule of third, the blur effect, etc. Singh’s photography tells the story of what it was in the 70’s to live in India, the day to day life. He Explores the deep picture of India’s political, religious, and economic situation during that time period. In his photographs you can appreciate that special moment in which the subject becomes the main character and the environment becomes the story. One photograph is just as important as the next one and so on. Every image it’s its own story.
My favorite photograph was Catching the Breeze, Hathod Village, Jaipur. In this photograph Singh captures two girls swinging on a rope while some of the people in the village observe and others are just going about their day. The beautiful thing about this photograph it’s all the information the viewer is getting from this one shot. We can observe the happiness of the two girls and how it is being shared with some of the villagers, you can see how some are laughing a long while others are amused by it, especially the children. While looking at this photograph I myself shared a laugh, Singh caught the decisive moment in this photograph Some of his techniques include, freeze action photography, diagonal lines, rule of thirds, and wide shot.
