Days in Kolkata: a Photo Gallery by Sumana Mitra

The Image Gallery I prepared for The Dreaming Machine contains 15 images which were taken in different places of Kolkata, India in different occasions & time. Kolkata is called as City of Joy. It is also called a heritage and cultural hub of Bengal. Like every city, Kolkata has its own characteristics which makes it very colorful and unique in its own way.  A rhythm of life is always flowing in the vein of Kolkata. In every season Kolkata looks different from the previous one. There is a saying that Bengali people have 13 festivals in 12 months, which means people don’t miss a chance to celebrate life here. So it s changing its character time to time & becomes more beautiful. So I tried to capture the moments and different characteristics of the city and its people and festivals. I also tried to portray the moods, expressions, body languages of different people and their rituals during any festival. In this way I just tried to illustrate the essence of the city as I believe in capturing the decisive moments. Among the 15 pictures there are 2 images taken in Sundarban, a village of West Bengal. In those 2 images I just tried to give a glimpse of rural life of Bengal as the life of rural people has a different essence.

 

Sumana Mitra was born on 1^st September 1991 in West Bengal, India. Presently she is working as an Assistant Professor of visual communication of a college in India. She has completed Diploma in Photography from International Institute of Photography & Advance Diploma in same from Light & Shadow, an Institute of photography in India. She has also completed a Master Degree in Mass communication & journalism. Her photography works got acceptance in “Digifocus National Salon” & “The Wall Mag” photography salon. Her photography works have been exhibited in an Annual exhibition of National Academy of Photography.  She was very much attracted to the art of photography at very tender age when she saw the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson in a photography magazine, which moved her and made her curious to know the aesthetics and techniques behind a good photograph. So she started to read, watch and learn the techniques of it. Within this period of learning she came to know and saw the works of Cavin Carter, Steve McCurry, Ansel Adams, Sebastiao Salgado, Daido Moriyama, Raghu Rai, Raghuveer Sing etc. which created a great impact on her world of thought. She was also influenced by the works of great painter of all times Vincent Van Gogh & Pablo Picasso. She has chosen the street & travel photography Genre as she always wanted to tell a story through her works. She wanted to portray the essence of daily life and moments, pain, sorrow, happiness of common people and also moods, expressions, body language as she always viewed photography as capturing a decisive moment. Apart from street & travel photography she is also interested in conceptual photography and contemporary photo art.