Woes of the wetlands

08 December,2013 12:04 PM IST |   |  Anu Prabhakar

Physicist and photographer Dr Ashish Dubey hopes to save the environment through his photographs of wetlands


Indore-based photographeru00a0Dr Ashish Dubey's photographs are of the reflections of weeds that stand stooped over wetlands. However, a first time viewer of Dubey's metaphysical photographs can be duped into believing that his paintings are only scribblings of non-linear geometric designs, lines and nothing else. There are no weeds or wetlands in sight -- not, at least, at first glance.


Through his latest series of photographs, Ashish Dubey hopes to create awareness about the disappearing wetlands

Much like his art, the thought behind his artwork is not easy to understand. A physicist by profession and an environmental do-gooder by nature, Dubey points out to the need to preserve our quickly disappearing wetlands.

"I want to go from form to non-form," he continues cryptically, while talking about his art. Dubey uses the example of sky-gazing kids who let their imagination run wild while romanticising the shape of clouds. "They look at clouds and think it looks like a bear and so on," he explains. "When we look at something, we define it using what is already in our memory. I want to take my viewers to a space where no form exists and where the photograph is given a new meaning," he explains.

Dubey's most startlingly beautiful piece of artwork is an indigo coloured photograph of a wetland that he clicked in Indore. It took him two years to work on it. One early morning in Mandu, Dubey's wife found herself bathed in a brilliant blue light, that is special to the monsoon season. "I waited till the next monsoon for that light," he recalls. When his time finally came, he shot the wetlands for five to 10 minutes and came away with two useable images.

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