Snapshots of india

Photojournalist Prashant Panjiar’s images of our country at the cusp of change will be exhibited at the Visual Arts Gallery in India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, from September 25 to October 5.

All the photographs here are part of a personal project done in the new millennium that traces the visual landscape of India at the cusp of change and reflects upon the ways we live.

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All the images have been shot in the panoramic format. I only started using the panoramic camera in the year 2000.

The notion that photojournalism is all about blood and gore is outdated. The best of photojournalism should be artistic.

But the space for photojournalism in our media has shrunk dramatically in the past few years. There are plenty of reasons for these that we will not go into. But to a photographer, even an editorial and a documentary photographer, photography is primarily about communication.

So I had to find other avenues to show my work — not because it’s my work but because it has a political and social context and I need to get it out to people. I look at this ‘Pan India’ exhibition in this light.

I now operate in an art gallery space which is both a way to earn a living as also a way to validate myself as a photographer.

Prashant Panjiar’s exhibition, Pan India, will show at the Visual Arts Gallery in India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, from September 25 to October 5