Life in a Fish Bowl

This is NOT the photo. I swear.

I haven’t touched my camera since my return to Canada last April. It’s lying disused, sad, lonely.  I have thought about it on several occasions. Recently, when the lake froze over in Kingston, I contemplated running out in my winter gear for some fascinating photographs. But the minus temperature outside, along with my toasty blanket, a line up of Criminal Minds on my laptop and the steaming chicken corn soup I had just made… well, they kept me at bay.

These days, when it comes to photography, I amuse myself with the photographs from my big, fat Indian holiday. They keep me warm.

I have a photograph, “Fishbowl,” in CURA. It was taken in Calcutta, India, last March. You can see it here.

It’s featured in the same issue as poet Oliver de la Paz (!)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman

“Synastry” from my “Afternoons in Varanasi: A Series”. Taken in March 2012, it’s on the cover of Barely South Review (September 2012 issue).

My official artist’s statement:

Photography is not my main medium of expression. Writing is. Yet, I have found that it is photographs that express what I am unable to find words for. In photography, I try to capture the randomness in the mundane, the unexpected in the predictable, the carpe vitam in the commonplace. Some of my clicks have a voyeuristic quality, since I have found that being a single brown woman, there are certain lines one cannot cross. I trespass those lines anyway, but from a distance.

These photographs are from a series set in Varanasi, India, and were taken on the ghats (or, the riverbanks) earlier this year. They were taken in the afternoon, a time most popular for siestas in India. I have tried to capture a side of the city that is not immediately visible to touristy eyes.

I have four photographs from “Afternoons in Varanasi: A Series” in Barely South Review.  Check out “Synastry” (cover), “Communion,” “Affinity” and “Rainbow” here (see pages 93, 94 and 95).