Chennai

On a busy Wednesday evening at the ongoing Chennai Photo Beinnale, a bunch of photographers were waiting to capture a great shot of Pablo Bartholomew. As he made an appearance, they got on an alert mode. But instead of posing, Pablo immediately took out his camera and armed with a mischievous smile started clicking photos of the photographers instead. The waiting photographers ended up sharing a good laugh with their icon and spectators watched in glee. It is this amiable and easy-going nature of Pablo Bartholomew as well as his knack of soaking in what is going on around him that has made him a veteran in his field.

“I entered the field in the dynamic Nehruvian era. A lot was going on in the country. Not just politically but even socially. I just drew inspiration from all that was happening around me. It has always been like that. While my seniors were more into capturing the ‘exotic’ (say the sadhus or the firang hippies), I always liked working on things that were actually happening,” says Pablo. 

Known more for his photojournalistic work, where he captured the Bhopal Gas Tragedy, the Emergency and the Babri Masjid demolition; photos from his recent exhibition 60/60 at Sakshi Art Gallery, Mumbai that captures his artist friends from the 70s and 80s have been generating a lot of interest among present generation and have since gone viral on social media. Some of these photos show politician Shashi Tharoor playing Anthony to filmmaker Mira Nair’s Cleopatra in a play, Smita Patil chilling in Bartholomew’s Bombay flat, Shabana Azmi visiting the dancing girls’ quarters on GB Road, Delhi or Nafisa Ali looking oddly close to the camera, sucking her fingers as we can see grains of khichdi stuck to her hands. 

“In the 70s and 80s, the film artistes and other stars were more approachable and humane. There was no starry aura around them. I could easily sit at a chai shop and chat with Amitabh Bachchan. I remember Amjad Khan helping me by holding props at the sets, when I was shooting it! Sanjeev Kumar would engage in serious discussions in his make-up room in a haze of smoke and alcohol around him. Can you imagine that now? Actors like Smita Patil and Naseeruddin Shah were just about finding their feet in cinema in 70s, were in struggling phase and had much time. So for these photos I let the moment speak, coupled with the light and aesthetics of what is there,” says the photographer who counts the Padmashri, Word Press Photo of the Year and Order of Arts and Letters and more in the list of awards he has been conferred with. 

Pablo’s father Richard Bartholomew was one of the leading art critics of the country and his mother Rati, a well-known theatre personality. “My father had a peripheral influence on me even though my influences come from cinema and music. Though I’ve curated shows with my father’s work and mine together, but as separate bodies of work because I didn’t have access to his archives until his death. Through my mother I discovered the stage, tried acting but failed miserably. Then I started clicking photos of my mother’s plays. So I had a really fertile upbringing but there was always this urge to break-free from them and that is the reason I eventually moved from New Delhi to Mumbai,” shares Pablo. 

Talking about his iconic photos from Bangladesh cyclone, Bhopal Gas Tragedy and the Emergency, the photographer says, “As a photographer, your mission is to communicate in a way the larger world can understand. My photographs did bring awareness to the Bhopal disaster. Unfortunately, it didn’t change much for the victims.” He becomes silent for a brief moment almost like he goes back in time. 

At the ongoing Biennale, Pablo gave a digital presentation at the Design Hotel in Phoenix MarketCity on how social media had connected him with photographers in New York and they ended up working together. Sharing his opinion on technology, social media and selfies, he says, “Technology drives human behaviour and I am all for it. I myself use digital photography and I feel social media has immense potential. Digital revolution, like smart phones, and social media have given people this opportunity to record. Anyone can take pictures. But they run the risk of becoming banal. Photographs should move you,” he concludes.

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