Colour coded garden: Photographers Swapan Nayak and Gilles Bensimon present two ways of looking at nature

Sharp black-and-whites and blurry riots of colour… Gardens of the Mind, the latest exhibition at Tarq, showcases two diametrically opposite portrayals of nature through 60 photographs by India's Swapan Nayak and France's Gilles Bensimon. Tasveer, a Bengaluru-based comtemporary photography space, has put together this exhibition as part of its 10th anniversary celebration.

With his Radha: A Love in Eternity series, art photographer Nayak replicates man's yearning for the divine through his snapshots of nature. And in his Watercolour series of underwater prints, French fashion photographer Bensimon brings out his fascination for flowers and water. While Nayak's images are in sharp focus and black-and-white, Bensimon's indistinct, unclear images are a mass of colour.

The exhibition largely belongs to Nayak, who has 54 photographs (11 x 11 inches) on display, with six by Bensimon (70 x 93 inches). Nayak's Radha-Krishna love saga is inspired by the Bengali literary text Vaishnava Padabali and Rabindranath Tagore's baul songs. To showcase Radha's hardships and anando (ultimate happiness) derived from this union, he groups photographs under specific titles.

For instance, Purvarang, 'the first flame of love', portrays saplings sprouting from crevices or reflective water bodies to indicate 'new beginnings', or man as a mirror image of god. And Sambhog, 'love in union', has creepers canoodling and waters of a river kissing the bank. "For instance, stones and water in my images replicate the banks of the Yamuna, where Krishna left Radha to settle in Mathura," the artist says.

This series was born of his reclusive wanderings over three years in the jungles of Assam, Meghalaya, Jharkhand and north Bengal and a diet of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi's songs, along with the literary works of Tagore, Sunil Gangopadhyay and Shakti Chattopadhyay. His photographs remind the viewer of scenes from Satyajit Ray's films, which use natural elements to reflect the mood of the protagonist or situation.

Nayak's 18-year career as a photojournalist involved stints at The Telegraph, The Asian Age and Outlook. His earlier exhibition, Nowhere People, documented the struggles of Bangladeshi refugees living on floating islands along the Brahmaputra. Refugees In Their Own Land captured natives in northeast India displaced in their own states.

Nayak turned to the metaphorical in 2008 because "barring the composition, all subjects are pre-decided in news assignments. The photograph in its entirety was not mine". To claim complete creative licence, he develops his photographs in a dark room. The first departure from the news norm was Being and Nothingness (2011) based on Jean Paul Sartre's book on the search for truth. And now, Radha: A Love in Eternity.

Bensimon's work is quite different. He submerges fresh flowers in rich pinks, yellows and reds into turquoise waters, causing a refractive surface involving ripples and bubbles. The resultant imagery is distorted, but mesmerising for its fluid palettes, reminiscent of impressionist paintings, parfum and spring. "As soon as the flower is cut, it dies. But, when I plunge them into water, they are briefly reborn. It's as if I am bringing them back to life one last time before they wilt and fade," he says.

Bensimon is hugely popular in the international circuit for his associations with Elle magazine, the TV show America's Next Top Model, the brand Saks Fifth Avenue and as portrait photographer for the likes of Cindy Crawford, Madonna, Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez. His Watercolour series reflects his transition from 'posed' glamour shots to unpredictable abstract creations.

'Gardens of the Mind' is on view at Tarq at Dhanraj Mahal, Apollo Bunder, Colaba, till March 19.