PHOTOGRAPHY

kumardesilva inner

PHOTOGRAPHY

I’ve been greatly influenced by the work of the great French photographers Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Doisneau. I have nothing against colour photographs BUT I do find black and white photographs far more exhilarating and exciting. You literally get to explore the minutely different and contrasting zillion layers of grey juxtaposed in between the blacks and the whites. I love the tangible textures and the feel of the grays !!!

I was actually collecting and working on a portfolio of images for my personal kick ONLY. I never ever thought of myself as a photographer. But then it dawned on me that January 2011 is a significant one in my life. It is exactly 25 years since I joined the Embassy of France in Sri Lanka, 25 years since I began hosting Bonsoir (March 1986) and 25 years since I first set foot in Paris. It is indeed a triple celebration of the incurable francophone and incurable Francophile in me. The feeling and nostalgia is personified in this exhibition which I shared with the public.

France has kind of been my spiritual home in a sense, ever since the first day I set foot there 25 years ago. I do speak the language and, along the years, that has enabled me to plunge first-hand into its culture without the help of translators and translations. It must be some remote karmic force that made this bond really happen. I love the French verb ‘flaner’. It literally means ‘to stroll, wander around’ and that’s what I love doing in Paris particularly …. with my camera in hand …exploring little known churches and chapels, cobblestone streets and village squares, rustic inns and wayside cafes … indulging off the beaten track … o la la indeed !