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See, Shoot, Self Publish: How self published photobooks are on the rise in India

Updated On Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

A growing number of Indian photographers are self-publishing photo books, even though it’s expensive to self publish, especially without a book grant. Photographers prefer this model because of the creative and editorial freedom it offers. Photographers and visual artists also publish under their own imprints, such as Ugly Dog by Sohrab Hura, Editions JOJO by Kaamna Patel and Red Turtle by Soumya Sankar Bose. For the reader, photobooks now range from documentary, docu-fiction and explorations of culture to autobiographical, conceptual work that may employ personal archives and family albums as part of the narrative.

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1 / 10

Magnum photographer Sohrab Hura’s book, The Coast, is an iteration of his long term project and his short film, The Lost Head & the Bird. Both film and book are set along the coasts of India, unveiling undercurrents of violence that is religious, caste-based and sexual. The book (like the video) is an editing masterpiece that uses found images and Hura’s own photographs to tell a story in 12 iterations.(Sohrab Hura)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

Magnum photographer Sohrab Hura’s book, The Coast, is an iteration of his long term project and his short film, The Lost Head & the Bird. Both film and book are set along the coasts of India, unveiling undercurrents of violence that is religious, caste-based and sexual. The book (like the video) is an editing masterpiece that uses found images and Hura’s own photographs to tell a story in 12 iterations.(Sohrab Hura)

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The images switch between being brutal, funny, dark and silly and all together at once. Sohrab Hura designs and edits his books himself. “The work was made over seven years and is like Chinese whispers—each time we narrate, something changes. It’s like narrative is the new warfare,” he says.(Sohrab Hura)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

The images switch between being brutal, funny, dark and silly and all together at once. Sohrab Hura designs and edits his books himself. “The work was made over seven years and is like Chinese whispers—each time we narrate, something changes. It’s like narrative is the new warfare,” he says.(Sohrab Hura)

3 / 10

Between 2007-2008, on a Nokia 6600 phone that his brother gave him, Sanjeev Saith made some photographs of his ailing parents, for whom he was a fulltime caregiver. “It was actually over two nights and two days in that period, that the photographs in the book Happy Goodnight came to be,” he says.(Sanjeev Saith)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

Between 2007-2008, on a Nokia 6600 phone that his brother gave him, Sanjeev Saith made some photographs of his ailing parents, for whom he was a fulltime caregiver. “It was actually over two nights and two days in that period, that the photographs in the book Happy Goodnight came to be,” he says.(Sanjeev Saith)

4 / 10

Happy Goodnight, Sanjeev Saith’s photobook, is self published, and the book is pocket-sized, opening into an accordion fold that reveals the monotony of a caregiver’s routine in a manner of no beginning or end.(Courtesy Sanjeev Saith)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

Happy Goodnight, Sanjeev Saith’s photobook, is self published, and the book is pocket-sized, opening into an accordion fold that reveals the monotony of a caregiver’s routine in a manner of no beginning or end.(Courtesy Sanjeev Saith)

5 / 10

Handmade, hand stitched and bearing an open spine, Kaamna Patel’s limited-edition photobook, In Today’s News: Alpha Males and Women Power, appropriates images from the print media to offer striking commentary on predetermined gender roles and patriarchy.(Kaamna Patel)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

Handmade, hand stitched and bearing an open spine, Kaamna Patel’s limited-edition photobook, In Today’s News: Alpha Males and Women Power, appropriates images from the print media to offer striking commentary on predetermined gender roles and patriarchy.(Kaamna Patel)

6 / 10

In Kaamna Patel’s photobook, the images were collected from newspapers across four months in early 2019 and Patel went to a local printer in Bora Bazaar in Mumbai to keep the cost low.(Courtesy Kaamna Patel)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

In Kaamna Patel’s photobook, the images were collected from newspapers across four months in early 2019 and Patel went to a local printer in Bora Bazaar in Mumbai to keep the cost low.(Courtesy Kaamna Patel)

7 / 10

Alakananda Nag’s book Armenians in Calcutta is an ode to the community’s contribution to the history of Kolkata, as well as what remains of that now. Seen here is a spread of images of singer-dancer Gauhar Jaan, who was born in 1873 as Angelina Yeoward, of Armenian descent on her maternal side. She recorded more than 600 songs in over ten languages between 1902 and 1920—the first commercially recorded artist of the sub-continent.(Alakananda Nag)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

Alakananda Nag’s book Armenians in Calcutta is an ode to the community’s contribution to the history of Kolkata, as well as what remains of that now. Seen here is a spread of images of singer-dancer Gauhar Jaan, who was born in 1873 as Angelina Yeoward, of Armenian descent on her maternal side. She recorded more than 600 songs in over ten languages between 1902 and 1920—the first commercially recorded artist of the sub-continent.(Alakananda Nag)

8 / 10

Hermione Martin (Hermy) was raised in Calcutta. Hermy never married for she didn’t find an appropriate Armenian match. Photographed at the Sir Cathchick Paul Chater Home for the Elderly, Park Circus, Calcutta, 2012. From Armenians in Calcutta by Alakananda Nag. (Courtesy Alakananda Nag)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

Hermione Martin (Hermy) was raised in Calcutta. Hermy never married for she didn’t find an appropriate Armenian match. Photographed at the Sir Cathchick Paul Chater Home for the Elderly, Park Circus, Calcutta, 2012. From Armenians in Calcutta by Alakananda Nag. (Courtesy Alakananda Nag)

9 / 10

Technically a limited edition zine, Tito’s work A Still Year, is essentially a portraiture of people who coped with the pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020. Photographed in the artist’s studio in Mumbai during the golden hour, Tito’s portrait sitters (friends and others who responded to his call on Instagram) were invited to come and share their stories as he shot them.(Tito)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

Technically a limited edition zine, Tito’s work A Still Year, is essentially a portraiture of people who coped with the pandemic-induced lockdown in 2020. Photographed in the artist’s studio in Mumbai during the golden hour, Tito’s portrait sitters (friends and others who responded to his call on Instagram) were invited to come and share their stories as he shot them.(Tito)

10 / 10

In Tito’s zine A Still Year, one of the portrait sitters, Tanmayee, describes the lockdown as a period of gloom where she lost her job, but also where she stayed in with her partner, read books, cooked and danced together because there was nowhere else to go.(Tito)

Updated on Mar 25, 2022 04:09 PM IST

In Tito’s zine A Still Year, one of the portrait sitters, Tanmayee, describes the lockdown as a period of gloom where she lost her job, but also where she stayed in with her partner, read books, cooked and danced together because there was nowhere else to go.(Tito)

News / Photos / Ht Weekend / See, Shoot, Self Publish: How self published photobooks are on the rise in India

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