Something About My Style

Camera : (1) Canon 6D  (2)  Canon 5 D Mark 2

Lenses: (1) Tokina 16-28 F2.8  (2) Canon 24-105 L Series F4 (3) Canon 75-300 Lens F4-5.6 EF Series

I,  Madhur Dhingra,  am an impressionist photographer, passionate about shooting random happenings and unknown faces on  streets. I keep experimenting with new techniques & style to make my images unique.  I shoot in- studio and on the streets, handling both studio and ambient light artistically.  I am a strong believer in photography being a lifelong affair with learning and experimenting. Personally I tend to get bored soon doing similar images. As a photographer I have an inherent urge to continuously evolve both in style and technique.

It started as a hobby in 1996, later to become an acute passion and profession. I studied photography at the prestigious art institute  “Triveni Kala Sangam” situated in Mandi House, New Delhi. After passing out from there I started shooting product photography for all major advertising agencies in New Delhi. I have done campaigns for prestigious agencies like O&M, MAA, Interface and a host of others.  I now have 25 years of photography behind me. However my real passion lies in shooting people in my own style. My exhibitions and work have been highly acclaimed and published in India , Europe & Canada & America. 

Photography came to me as a fulfillment of a void which has plagued me from my childhood. I was born an only child to my parents in Delhi, into a family torn apart by the aftermath that followed the partition of India and Pakistan in the year 1947. The exodus from our ancestral land in Pakistan was so sudden and hurried that my family had no choice but to flee overnight, leaving behind everything they owned. The only possessions they carried were the clothes which they wore on their bodies. Trains packed with men, women and children were mercilessly hacked to death by Muslim rioters all along the way. My father never really recovered from the wounds which partition inflicted upon his psyche. Though I was born much later in Delhi, I too inherited or shall I say “made to inherit” those very insecurities from my parents and grandparents, and these remain with me till date. Emptiness  and restlessness have become an integral part of me and you will find this reflecting in most of my images and style.

Isolation resulting because of  Covid 19 pandemic made me search rigorously for a style which I could call entirely my own. My current work is a result of that very search.  Many magazines and galleries have published & displayed my recent work and called it unique.

Shooting people on the streets has always fascinated me. Those strange and unknown faces with their uncharted expressions and emotions enthrall me to my very core. Going closer and closer to chaos on the Indian streets, till I myself become a part of very chaos I want to shoot, has lead me to capture my most memorable images. Each of my  picture needs to tell a story on its own and also be a part of a larger story to make them all coherent. I have never had any interest in singular images no matter how good they might be.

I love spontaneously created moments and real emotions, use them to create strong artistic images and then weave them into a strong storyline.  Words and images then become a formidable pair in conveying what I need to say.

What initially started as stark realism in street photography has now given way to abstract, impressionist and painterly imagery. Waiting endlessly for ‘the decisive moment’   does not attract me anymore.  I now like to blur out images, faces, expressions and create movement in my own way. Many a times I use Intentional Camera Movement technique  where I experiment with shutter speeds varying from 1/10s to  1/30s with a horizontal / vertical movement of the camera.

I then process the images keeping in mind the mood & aesthetics of that particular image, using brushes, smudges, light and painterly effects to reach my visualized image. The lighting effect is mostly taken into consideration at the shooting stage depending on what mood I want to create. Going very close to the subject remains an integral part of my style. I can never ever forget the saying of Robert Capa  “If your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.”

I have no preconceived ideas on how I would end up editing a particular image. Each image is different and my treatment to that image goes accordingly. I am very intuitive in this process and simply follow my heart. It is something like playing with a jigsaw puzzle. Somewhere in my mind I have a rough image and then I start playing with the tools at my disposal, till there comes a time when something in me says “Stop…this is it” .  I then leave that edited image for some days without looking at it. After some days when I relook at that very image and I find that I invariably need to make finer adjustments. This process takes place 2-3 times till I am finally done.

Needless to say restlessness , emptiness and a void are always at play no matter how I approach my images.