http://flipeye.com

What is photography? What is art? What is the point of it? It's everything around us, and it's yourself, there is no point, it's putting your thoughts on paper, in an instant, expressing more than words can, so many things. Photography and art isn’t limited to the medium, it's more than that, I believe the real art is the artist and the world, this is what inspires us. What catches one person’s eye, but another walks past?

With photography I have learnt the value of detail, it has taught me to look for details, to look for things, this is more than clicking a button. The camera simply allows the user to catch the image, it is the artist who sees it. The way I think is life is full of speeded up days, what the camera does is crop this so you can focus on what you want. It takes a moment, and stretches it to infinity, and gives us the calm of observing that moment properly, and life is like this to me, full of clutter, and very special moments.

In India, I saw uncensored reality, real poverty, real madness, not the sanitised cleaned up, behind closed doors society of Britain. But why are these themes so interesting to me? Because they are more real, everyone identifies with the underdog, not many can identify with the entrenched falsity of the ruling classes. This is where photography is different, it is designed to raise questions rather than answers, but the result is that artists will remain unfulfilled, because in their quest for answers, they simply raise more questions.

Don’t take anything on face value, everything can be doctored even these words, read them once, forget them, and go make your own art.

Gautam Narang also took part in Field of Vision: Extremes, 2005.

back to top