German
photographer Peter Bialobrzeski spent one month in Kochi to shoot
images for a photo-diary
Photos: Kochi street scene by Peter Bialobrzeski; Photo of Peter Bialobrzeski by Ratheesh Sundaram
By
Shevlin Sebastian
German
photographer Peter Bialobrzeski, 54, could not resist himself. When
he saw the frenzy during the release of Tamil superstar Rajnikanth's
'Kabali' in end July, at Kochi, he went and saw it at a cineplex.
“The cinematography and the settings were absolutely amazing,” he
says. “The sound and music was almost like a Quentin Tarantino
film. However, Rajnikanth's acting was exaggerated. In the West we
are used to subtlety. Nevertheless, I enjoyed myself.”
Peter
was in Kochi to shoot photos for his Kochi diaries. “These are
images of Fort Kochi, Mattancherry, as well as the main town, but
will be shown in the form of a diary,” he says. Peter had secured a
one-month residency from the Goethe Institute in Bengaluru and was
working in association with the Kochi Bienalle, as well as the Pepper
House Residency.
He
had published in diary form earlier: there are books on Cairo,
Taipei, as well as his hometown of Wolfsburg. Another one, on Beirut,
is in the works. These have been published by The Velvet Cell, which
is run by the Osaka-based Irishman Eanna de Freine. “These are not
touristy pictures,” he says. “So the books will appeal to only
those who are interested in photography, as well as artistes.”
On
most days, Peter would get up at 5.30 a.m., at Fort Kochi, and walk
around and take photographs till 7 a.m. “I stopped when the
sunlight became too strong,” he says. “I also strolled about in
the evenings.” Most of his photographs are of capturing life as it
happens: there are images of wandering cows and goats; a man loading
goods onto the back of a lorry; a woman walking through a gap between
buildings.
In
one photo, taken at twilight, in Fort Kochi, at a crossroads, there
is a lamp post in the middle, with a red Communist flag at one side.
Amazingly, a man sits, a few inches away, almost in the middle of the
road, with a large container, in which he kept fish. In the
background, people are walking about. A foreigner, in a black T-shirt
and blue shorts, is riding a cycle. Across the top of the frame are
electric and cable wires criss-crossing each other, a typical aspect
in most streets of India today.
“I
am interested in the flow of things,” says Peter. “There is a lot
of waiting to get the right photograph. Some figures are sharp but
there is also movement in the photographs. I don’t want to take
cute images.”
To
get his realistic photos, Peter uses the Canon 5D Mark II, as well as
the just-introduced Leica SL. “I have been asked by the
manufacturer to give a review,” says this professor of photography
at the University of the Arts in Bremen. As for the lens, Peter
prefers the Zeiss shift 35 mm lens. Interestingly, out of the
thousands of images that he has taken, he will short-list only 51 for
the book.
Finally,
when asked about the Indian photographer he admires the most, Peter
says, “The late Raghubir Singh [1942-1999]. He was not much into
the beauty of a place. Instead, his photos were abstract and edgy,
and, therefore, authentic.”
(Sunday
Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi)
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