"All photographs are possible contributions to history" ❤️

The Writer as Photographer

Lewis Carroll & Edward Said | Quick Takes

#WorldPhotographyDay 💜

Yesterday, when I was travelling by car to Tirunelveli to attend an academic programme, I came across this lovely sight on the road, which so fascinated me, that I gently slowed down my car, and took a quick pic of the sight.

Since today happens to be World Photography Day, sitting in a lovely balcony facing the ‘blue ridge’ hills and the Thamiraparani river, in a lovely room in Palayamkottai town, me thought of writing this entry to celebrate the day, and the picture as well. 😊

Well, this sight was extra-fascinating because, we usually see one rider push-riding another bike.

But here, I was surprised to see two riders busy on push-riding mode. On first glance, couldn’t make sense of it at all.

But then, the little literary lamp within me started burning bigtime, 😉 and I was thinking of various lovely metaphoric allusions to the picture.

I thought of how good friends are there supporting and encouraging and uplifting one another, down the long road of our life’s journey etc. etc and etc! 😊

This also made me ruminate on a Math Professor by name Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote a lot of memorable children’s stories, under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll.

He was also an amateur photographer.

His main subjects for his photographs were children, and the legendary writers of his time, who also happened to be his close friends, including the likes of Lord Tennyson.

In contrast, this post would like to highlight yet another writer from the Postcolonial realm – the late Edward Said, [who was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia] who has written a poignant book based on some heart-wrenching photographs.

This poignant photographic portrait is titled, After the Last Sky: Palestinian Lives.

However, in this book, the reflections, ruminations and the main subjects for his photographs were not happy ones.

They were photographs and ruminations that were tinged with nostalgia, sentiment, sadness, and poignancy to the core!

The blurb to the book bares it all -

“A searing portrait in words and photographs of Palestinian life and identity that is at once an exploration of Edward Said's own dislocated past and a testimony to the lives of those living in exile”.

The photographs by Jean Mohr are gripping and tell stories that lie too deep for tears.

Right from the preface till the postscript, the book is a saga of suffering and sentimental ruminations from the past, from the point of view of an exile – an attempt to render Palestinian lives subjectively.

from the Book

A must-read especially for those of us who specialize in Postcolonial Studies or Tricontinental studies.  

As John Berger, renowned art critic and winner of the Booker Prize observes,

All photographs are possible contributions to history, and any photograph, under certain circumstances, can be used in order to break the monopoly which history today has over time!

How beautifully Berger has put it!

You may want to read Edward Said’s amazing review of John Berger’s Another Way of Telling – a lovely book that ‘explores the tension between the photographer and the photographed, between the picture and its viewers, between the filmed moment and the memories that it so resembles’.

This 1982 review by Edward Said is titled, “Bursts of Meaning.”

Even as I’m finishing this post from off my balcony, the HoD of English, St. Xavier’s College, Palayamkottai, is calling me to know if I’m ready to come there to join them for a cup of coffee! 😊

I said yes! 😊

And so yes! I’m winding up on this post for now… 😊

Here’s wishing you all a Happy World Photography Day!

To be continued…