DEPARTURE will be available for sale at the March 18 launch at Drifters Cafe & Bar in Bandra. Join me there at 12 pm for fantastic beer (I dig their IPA) and food. And support my launch by taking home a limited edition print!

I picked up my first camera when I was a child in the 70s. It was one of those rectangular wonders that you could buy at the supermarket check-out lines. Don’t forget the pack of flash bulbs and film! Naturally, in those days, I didn’t know anything about photography and to be fair, those dime store cameras weren’t meant for those who did. Point, shoot, and pop! If everything worked out, you’d have a strobey-looking indoor shot of your favorite family member or pet. The picture quality would have been terrible but that wasn’t a problem. It was rewarding enough to obtain a few keepers whenever it was time to pick up your prints in one of those envelopes.

My next profound encounter with photography came when I was 21 or so and shooting film for a biomedical program I’d enrolled in. It was a learning experience, to say the least. And more often than not, I found myself shooting rolls of film for my own enjoyment, taking advantage of the school’s generous lab hours that allowed me to process my own black and white film and prints for hours on end. The lab became a time machine: I’d go in sometimes and come out eight hours later with the weather completely changed or the day’s light on the fade away. At some point, I hung up my camera to pursue music and that became the driving force in my life for years to come.

Departure, for me, is about change, the new thing, and the journey. ICM photography and the life of a newly turned leaf as an artist became my next stop in 2022. Without actually recognizing the fact, I’d embarked on a new journey pursuing art with what had become a new way of taking pictures - Intentional Camera Movement - the act of taking pictures with slow shutter speeds with the added jiggle of the camera. My hope had been to create a form of abstract impressionist art, something miles away from my passion for street photography that I’d been working on for the past seven years, and something that had resulted in a profession change on my official Indian visa: from photographer to that of an artist.

Join me for the launch of the Aksa Collection and my debut as an artist on March 18th in Bandra, Mumbai. Sign up for my newsletter for pre-ordering on March 14 - 18. A 20% discount is available as well for those who attend the launch. Read more about the launch here.