Gopal M S, a copywriter with an ad agency, shoots his way to work with a Canon A530, a small, compact camera that he carries in his pocket and posts the pictures that he takes on his blog. “For the last two years, I have been taking a picture of Bangalore every day and publishing it on my photoblog called Which Main? What Cross? As a result, I have compiled a photographic chronicle of the City that is changing and evolving on a daily basis, sometimes agreeably and sometimes not,” he explains.
Satirical and intuitive, Gopal’s pictures are a thoughtful series of urban images which keenly reflect the organised chaos in most cities usually brought on by the sharing of a limited amount of space by a large number of people from diverse social, cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds. Buildings, people, objects and animals...they all have a story to tell through the lens of his camera.
From the bylanes of Shivajinagar, the crouching darkness under the City Market Flyover and the sleek architecture of the Central Business District, Gopal’s camera moves and explores the City at many different levels capturing its moods and its moments.
Two earthen pots of water painted with different religious symbols placed on a busy thoroughfare to quench the thirst of the passers-by. Iconic modern structures like U B City reflected in pools and ponds amid floating water lilies. A cow taking a snooze in the middle of the day on a bustling street.
A colourful conglomeration of the wheels of the Jatkas or the old horse driven carts. Black and white images of daily wage workers congregating anxiously at certain points in the City waiting to be hired. Larger than life movie billboards in the process of being erected. A traffic policeman dwarfed against a flying Harry Potter. Exposed brick walls splattered with paint and people engrossed in the newspaper soon after the bomb blasts.
Gopal’s images are juxtaposed in such a way as to elicit a profound emotional sense of the loneliness and alienation an urban landscape can sometimes create while also reminding us that the human spirit has the resilience to survive, to hope and to transform itself within any environment.
The exhibition is on at the Global Tree Cafe, F& B, St Mark’s Road till June 1.