From politicians to filmstars, photographer Jitendra Arya’s camera captured its subjects with an intimate ease
One of Kavi Arya’s earliest memories of his father, photographer Jitendra Arya, have been of seeing him do shoots in their Colaba house, which often doubled up as his studio. “He used to worship natural light. Our home in Colaba overlooked the harbour, so that became his default studio,” says Kavi, who would often find himself helping his father with the equipment.
A retrospective of the late photographer’s works, titled Light Works, is currently on at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). Curated by photo-historian Sabeena Gadihoke, there are around 300 photographs, spanning over 60 years of the prolific photographer’s works. Whether it’s a photograph of filmmaker Satyajit Ray casually posing next to a vintage 1930 Chrysler or of actor Dilip Kumar looking in the mirror and shaving his face, or Indira Gandhi preparing a meal in the kitchen, it’s the intimacy with which Jitendra’s lens captures the moment, that catapults the image into something else. “This kind of camaraderie can only come when there is a level of friendship and equality between the photographer and his subject,” says Kavi.
The photographer’s journey began in East Africa and then, moved towards England where he spent his formative years. He gained fame during 1953, when he was shooting images on the sets of John Ford’s film Mogambo being shot in Kenya, starring Clark Gable and Ava Gardner. “Ava saw him one day, looking a bit despondent, as he hadn’t got his picture that day. She told him, that she will give him a picture that even the director of the film would not get. She went into an open air shower, asked my father to climb atop a water tank nearby and he got an amazing shot of her back that was exposed a bit. That picture made it to the cover of Life magazine,” his son tells us. The photographer shifted to India in 1961, where he was offered a job at The Times of India. Thereafter, he did many features and shoots for magazines like Femina, Filmfare and The Illustrated Weekly of India.
For Kavi, this exhibition has been a rediscovery of his father as an artiste. “I think I took him for granted as a father in a way. I always knew this brilliant persona was there somewhere but it’s come to life now,” he signs off.
Light Works is on till October 8 at NGMA.
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