All of the photographs in this portfolio are selected from a body of work that I made in Rajasthan, India during the winter of 2018. It was my second adventure in India, because, like my very first influence, Eugene Atget, I am in love with the light, with the architecture, with the nature of the applied decoration both in ancient buildings and in contemporary structures.
India has taught me to document decoration and ornamentation, to appreciate embellishments, pattern, and color.
The spiral staircase is 300 years old; almost the same metal work appears on a contemporary staircase with a skylight. There is a consistent vocabulary of fracturing and directing the intense light. Decoration is intrinsic to the production of ordinary goods, for example, the grinding wheel. Walls, like the lintel of the wealthy merchant’s villa (haveli) are frescoed with stories and pattern, not unlike the reflection of the wall from a palace with a lady in her garden adorned with flowers and birds. Again, naturalistic pattern is found in the openwork screen from the maharajah’s palace, separating, yet allowing light to flow through.
