Events

JASPAL KAMANA—A COMMITTED CAMERAMAN

By Subhash Parihar

By its very nature, every photograph is a documentary evidence of something real. But the genre labeled as ‘Documentary Photography’ forms a class in itself. It is one of the various approaches to the art of photography. And when the documentation is focused on society, its issues, the life and plight of deprived or destitute people so as to draw public attention to them, it becomes ‘Social Documentary Photography’.

In Great Britain and the US‘ Social Documentary Photography’ had taken roots as early as in the nineteenth century. And many a times it culminated into far-reaching social changes. The innumerable pictures of child labourers, and their miserable plight, clicked by the American Sociologist and photographer Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940) resulted into a law against child labour.

There is yet another role performed by social photography. The world, as all of us know, is changing at an unprecedented speed, documentation of this change becomes all the more significant. As the old life-styles cannot be preserved in freezers forever, a cameraman can document it honestly for the coming generations. Such images, with the passage of time, will become visual sources of history. But in such documentation work, there is always a danger of adopting a sentimental approach which must be avoided.

Recently, some young photographers of Punjab have taken up the responsibility of documenting various traditional occupations of the region. The effort deserves all appreciation.  Photographer Jaspal Kamana is one of them. A college teacher by profession, he is passionately devoted to the art of photography. Having been active in this field for more than a decade, he has learnt to look at the world objectively. His pictures heighten the cognizance of people’s terrible working conditions. His approach is humanistic and he successfully conveys his message through the character’s body language, facial expression, and his/her surroundings. Tan Sei Hon, the Malaysian independent Curator aptly says: ‘By celebrating the worker, we also celebrate our own humanity which we sometimes forget exists under the weight of various job titles.’

Although colour photography is the fad of the day, Jaspal, in consonance with his subject matter shuns it, and opts for the monochromatic which has a charm of its own. It offers a soothing respite from the riot of colours all around us. His success as a photographer is already evident from his bagful of awards and honours. Not much needs to be said as his pictures speak for themselves.

Subhash Parihar

Art-Historian and Artist