3 Iconic Photographers Shaping A Legacy Through Their Lens

The conflict between photography as social commentary and artistic expression is as old as the medium itself. On one hand, it captures raw, unfiltered realities; shedding light on societal issues and sparking conversations. While the medium seeks to experiment with form, composition, and technique; celebrating its ability to evoke an emotional response purely through its aesthetic qualities. Throughout history, photography straddled these roles, often blurring the lines between documenting life and creating art. Heralded for their sway over the popular imagination, these three Indian visual storytellers have brought fresh perspectives to this debate for contemporary audiences, merging unique insights with spellbinding vision in their compelling work. 

 1.  The Subtle Art Of Repetition With Sunhil Sippy

Sunhil Sippy, a self-proclaimed excavator of authentic moments, released his first photo book The Opium Of Time in midsummer of 2022. In a city as vast and complex as Mumbai, uncovering the hidden beauty beneath its gritty façade has become second nature to Sippy, driven by his innate curiosity about people’s lives. Over a decade ago, a shooting accident cost him the heel of his left foot—a loss that, in an ironic twist of fate, became his greatest gift. As he healed, walking became his therapy and inspiration, leading him down the path of street photography, where each step uncovered a new story. “I often walk aimlessly and without an agenda,” Sippy explains. “But it is only through repetition which takes place over years, that I begin to discover patterns and subtle threads between images.” 

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Sunhil Sippy delicately navigates the thin line between voyeurism and candid photography, understanding the importance of spontaneity while being mindful of his subjects’ dignity. His presence, he explains, is spiritually accepted by his subjects — allowing him to capture life in a way that is both respectful and profound.

  2.  Fostering Creative Synergy With Sohrab Hura

While Sohrab Hura’s surreal image-making and social commentary are widely celebrated, his debut curatorial work with the Dubai-based Ishara Art Foundation in the show Growing Like A Tree (2021) offers a new dimension to his artistic journey. Here, he corralled together a diverse group of visionaries who have “a stake at something in common that is far more urgent than photography.” 

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In this exhibition, he wove together a tapestry of past and present collaborators—14 artists and collectives from Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Myanmar, Singapore, Nepal, and Pakistan. Together, they created a space where voices and experiences flowed together naturally, like roots intertwining in fertile soil. Their works explored the changing landscapes of cities, collective memory, and the environment, each piece walking the tightrope between documentary and fiction, image and object. Through this network of narratives, they juxtaposed the archival with the contemporary and saw the magic of the mundane through the eyes of children.

 3.  Self Portrait In Performance With Pushpamala N

And finally, the masquerader and leading lady of her photo-romance series, Pushpamala N. has been a fervent critic of feminine stereotypes entrenched deep within the Indian subconscious since the mid-nineties. Challenging the dominant intellectual discourse, her evocative frames reference play acting and Hindu mythology, in a bid to reimagine the South Asian peoples. In Bharat Mata, Pushpamala revisits Abanindranath Tagore’s 1905 watercolour, a poignant symbol of the Swadeshi Movement and the nationalist frenzy that arose after the Partition of Bengal. 

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Through Kali, she re-creates a 1908 calendar print that served as covert nationalist propaganda under British rule. The image, originally promoting an East India Cigarette Manufacturing Company, subtly depicted the Indian goddess Kali trampling the white-skinned Shiva—a metaphor for the defeat of colonial masters. Her work transforms the artist’s body into the Body Politic, using humour and complexity to engage with the past while addressing the ongoing dialogue of identity politics.