Sandeep Biswas

There are many fathers and mothers of photography depending on the history of the medium. Right from the person who invented the pinhole camera ( Ibn Al Haytham), Nicéphore Niépce and Daguerre (The first recorded photographs and printing technique), and so on. Henri Cartier Bresson is considered the father of modern photography. Photographers like Sally Mann, Margaret Bourke White and  Dorothea Lange, and many others among women. Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Richard Avedon, Andreas Gursky, and many others among the men. We have Indians among Raja Deel Dayal, Sunil Janah, Dayanita Singh, Raghu Rai, Raghuveer Singh, Prabuddha Dasgupta, Pushpamala N, Kulwant Roy, Homai Vyaravalla and many others. Each has given the medium its place and be called path-breakers in the medium. So just to call one or two people the father or mother would not do justice. The medium evolves with time.

It depends on each individual. Yes, the medium is going through turmoil because everybody and anybody has access to a camera and considers himself/herself a photographer. If you can take the difficult path to discover your personal and individual visual language and sensibility, you can save that death. The medium on the whole is very much alive, but the overburden of cliched and meaningless imagery is killing its seriousness. It will be totally your own effort to kill it or give it a new life.

Don't follow the beaten path. It is crowded and chaotic out there. Search for your own individuality and expression. make yourself unique. The rules in the books are only to help you understand the ABCD's. But you have to write the story with your own life experience. To do that you have to also unlearn.