Shades of grey in a world of black and white

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The stillness, the composition, the light and darkness all seemed to converge into a beautiful memory that speaks a thousand words, all expressed in a single photograph. With just two colours, black and white, the picture looked perfect from every angle, and yet left space for you to find your own story in it. Jagdish Agarwal’s celebration of black and white photography at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai recently spoke volumes of his depth in photography. Agarwal, who has been shooting in black and white for more than four decades now, says that the sheer aesthetic appeal of black and white photography made him take to it.
“There was no colour
photography when I started out almost 46 years ago. Most of the photographers had to send their films abroad for processing, as the facility wasn’t even available here. Somehow, I just stuck to the black and white medium and went on exploring it. I was and still am obsessed with the thought that light and shadow alone contribute to the beauty
of the forms we see,” he says.
What amazed Agarwal, as he realised along those 46 years, was that he never faced maintenance issues with black and white
pictures. “Till date, my pictures look fine and as new as they were 40 years ago. Only some of them have become yellow over the years, but most of them
still look the same. In colour pictures, the lines tend to fade and one can’t really preserve them for too long,” he says.
Colours for all their diversity tend to distract while focusing on an object, says Agarwal. “Somehow, I’ve always felt that colours tend to take away the beauty of a picture, especially the moment which is being captured. For instance, if I am capturing a photograph of just clouds in the sky, my object is the sky and the clouds. I don’t want colours there distracting people and making them think about the different shades of the blue sky or any other colour which can take their attention away from the clouds and the beauty of the sky,” he explains.
Even after four decades, Agarwal still gets excited at the thought of the composition of the picture with respect to its artistic value. “There are different kinds of photographers. Wedding photographers focus on what the bride and groom are doing, and photojournalists capture the interesting moments that strike them, but what I look for is an artistic element in the picture. Especially the lines, angles, shapes, the grey scale and the various other elements that need to be looked into,” says Agarwal.
One of the most important virtues of being a photographer is patience. “Sometimes, you may just come across a beautiful moment and capture it instantly. But at times, you may simply have to wait for hours
on end to capture that perfect moment. For example, for a picture in Bhutan, I
had to wait for an hour-and-a-half to get the perfect shot. I saw a wall with six windows and a ray of light falling on one of the windows. However, I wasn’t convinced with the people walking up and down and needed an interesting element. Then I saw a monk coming and waited for him to cross that path which he did and I captured the moment while he was in the spotlight,” says Agarwal. He says that after a point of time, aestheticism just becomes inherent, and you realise the necessary elements in a picture.
“You see, your eyes see everything in colour, and as a black and white photographer, you need to immediately calculate and imagine the view in a black and white frame. You need to understand what shade and intensity of grey red or
grey will turn out to be. Your eyes slowly get used to
this mechanism and even your thoughts attune with your mind. Once the composition works for you and clicks, it is just a matter of adjusting some technical things in the camera,” says Agarwal.
And one can definitely look for a story in his pictures. With every frame wonderfully captured, Agarwal goes beyond the obvious and incorporates different elements in his frames. “The challenge really lies in conceiving the end result in black and white. Sometimes, what you see is what you don’t actually, and at other times, what you don’t see exists — such is the fallacy of the medium,” he says.
The photographer adds that his biggest reward is when people find their stories in his pictures and relate to them. “One schoolgirl was moved by a picture of mine which had a mother and child. She almost cried, as she didn’t really live with her mother. Her sensitivity and tenderness touched me as a photographer. This medium calls for love of the medium and an unfailing inner eye,” he says.