A Beam Or A Spider? German Photographer Captures Indian Monuments In New Perspective

German photographer Nicolaus Schmidt is known for bringing out interesting angles to Indian built heritage. Interestingly, the photographer will be holding a photo exhibition in Bengaluru this month. Mr Schmidt's exhibition titled "India Tecton" in collaboration with the Museum of Art and Photography (MAP) at Goethe Institut in Bengaluru will take place from May 14 to 27. The photographer is also conducting an exclusive five-day workshop on photography at MAP.

"Yes, I have been told that my pictures, particularly that of Jantar Mantar in Varanasi, give a different perspective to well-known monuments in India," said Berlin-based Mr Schmidt told PTI.

His book "India Tecton", features nearly 200 photographs of its built heritage spanning over 2,000 years, which he had taken during the course of his five visits to the country.

Talking about his journey, Mr Schmidt told PTI, "My first book project in India was on its women, right after the horrible rape incident of the young girl in Delhi in 2012. The project was a collaboration with an Indian journalist, Priyanka Dubey. But I have been taking pictures of Indian architecture since the beginning. The pictures of Karla's caves, incidentally, gave me the idea of a book. I came to India (to Pune) first in 2011 to visit a friend that I volunteered with way back in the 1980s."

He explained that he wanted to understand the country better.

"They are different yet there exist kinships. There is colonial domination. There are social contrasts. It has its own language of modernism, so different from the rest of the world, propagated by the likes of Charles Correa. It is all so fascinating," Mr Schmidt told the news agency.

The book really shaped up after his visit to the south, post-2015 "I realised that the difference is so vast between the regions that it is a story by itself," he said. India Tecton is his eighth book. His first, incidentally, was on break dancers of New York.

"There too, the dancers were propped against historical places and buildings. But my focus was on the dancers. The scenery and architecture served as a podium to celebrate dance,' Mr Schmidt revealed.

For the German photographer, the photos are not just for documentation, it is a work of art and it also documents the characteristics of his subjects. His latest project Natura Viva, for instance, which he is aware will not fit into a book, is extreme closeups of tree barks.

Schmidt said he has no favourites when it comes to building styles.

"I like some very old ones and some new ones. There are some really brilliant monuments here. But the built heritage in India in general is not very well maintained. I visited a palace in Patiala, it was almost in ruins. I felt very sorry to see that. I have also seen modern buildings, maybe only 10 years old, also beginning to fall apart," Schmidt said.