Musicscapes:The Multiple Emotions of Indian Music is a visual diary of 30 years of photo documentation through the lens of the passionate photographer Shobha Deepak Singh. In this book, Shobha encapsulates a slice of history of Indian music. Through the evocative black-and-white portraits, she sketches the many moods, iconic moments, and the ‘rasa’ of Indian music. From the maestros of vocal music, Balasaheb Poonchwale, Kumar Gandharva, Bhimsen Joshi, Kishori Amonkar, and Shubha Mudgal to legendary instrumental musicians, Bismillah Khan, Ravi Shankar, Amjad Ali Khan, Ali Akbar Khan, Vilayat Khan, Hari Prasad Chaurasia, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Ronu Mazumdar, and Zakir Hussain, Shobha has captured all of them through her own singular visual language. She works as a chronicler of the musical zeitgeist of modern India.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Shobha Deepak Singh
Shobha took up photography as a child with a ‘Roliflex camera’. Later, she was gifted a Yashika. Her most memorable photo is of the sunrise from Kanyakumari taken in 1960. In 1969, she bought a Nikon to capture the Sriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra’s production. She focused the spot of action. The result was wonderful images. From then on, there was no looking back for her. She graduated from the Kendra’s ballets to music. Shobha’s knowledge of the intricacies of music and dance brought the dramatic moment alive. Her turning point came in 1996, when E. Alkazi held a solo photo show of hers at Shridharani Art Gallery. In the words of Alkazi: ‘Her dogged and indefatigable persistence is rewarded by the images captured as a result of her swift, instinctive reflexes.’ He again invited her to display at Art Heritage in Triveni. In between, Shobha had been invited by the India Habitat Centre to showcase images of women in performing arts on the occasion of International Women’s Day. She exhibited her images in 2011 at the Nehru Centre, London. Her photographs have appeared in leading dailies and magazines.
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