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| Edited By: Dhaval Roy |Source: DNA |Updated: Oct 06, 2018, 06:35 AM IST
Professionally, Zubin Balaporia has been a musician for the last 30 years, but these days, he’s busy being a “passionate photographer”. The keyboardist of Indian rock band Indus Creed (who’s also a film, ad and background score composer) is all set to showcase a collection of his images at an exhibition called Blessed By The Light. “It’s quite difficult to curate one’s own photographs because you love them equally just like the music you compose,” Zubin says, as he speaks about his new-found passion. Excerpts from the interview...
The musician-photographer will be leading the show with an image of light streaming on a monk’s face. The exhibition gets its title from this picture. “Every shot has a play of light or shadow. Once the name and concept were finalised, whittling down the collection of snaps clicked over the past three years to 36 became easier,” he explains. Zubin talks passionately about a photo that he calls Utopia taken at the Kaziranga National Park, Assam. It has an elephant, its baby, man, trees, birds, mountains and sunlight. “For me, this is the perfect universe. You need to be ‘blessed by the light’ and all will be well,” he smiles. Also, Zubin doesn’t indulge in controlled lighting for his photography, whether indoors or outdoors. The presentation will have four panels — landscapes, horses, elephants and monks — other than images from Ladakh, Paris, Estonia, etc.
Zubin turned shutterbug approximately five years ago. Although his father was a serious and semi-professional photographer, it didn’t figure in Balaporia Jr’s scheme of things; till a trip to Germany with his close friend — photographer and director Subir Chatterjee. “On the trip, he took some great photos on a humble Sony camera and I was blown away. I realised it’s about the images you capture and not how high-end your cam is,” Zubin recalls. Soon, he started clicking on his iPhone before graduating to better cameras and lenses. Because he jumped straight into the digital world unlike many established photographers, there was much learning to do, which he did by reading extensively.
Even though music and photography are audio and visual mediums respectively, in Zubin’s opinion, they are not too different from each other. “I’ve always looked at music visually,” he says and elaborates that successful artistes are great at making something their own — whether music or photos. The two mediums may marry in one of his exhibitions. “I want to have photographs from a series — for instance, Ladakh — rolling one after the other and compose music for that,” he shares. He also has plans to hold at least two more exhibitions with the same theme in the next six months. At this exhibition, guests will be handed booklets that will have all the 36 images with a short story behind it.
As far as his career as a musician goes, Zubin is prepping to travel to Bhopal, Tunisia and Goa for gigs. Indus Creed is on a sabbatical as he focusses on photography and Uday Benegal (vocalist) is busy with a musical Sing India Sing. “We have recorded about four tracks and hope to release an album sometime next year, maybe,” he signs off.
When: October 9-14, 11 am-7 pm
Where: Baro, Lower Parel
