“From writing captions to clicking pictures, there’s a lot more that can be expressed that is worth a thousand words.”
Often there’s a disconnect between what an artist tries to say and what is depicted in the picture. However, our Uncommon photographer cum writer’s each composition blends easily with her words. Her photographs have an instant connect and control over the message she wants to portray!!
The Uncommon Box is extremely delighted to showcase some of the classic compositions and pieces of this talented and worthy artist Jyotsna Varkey. An ardent film lover and aspiring film maker, An ex-dipsite and Sulonian, Jyotsna is currently pursuing her academics in 12th grade and occasionally tries her hand at singing as well.
In her words Jyotsna says,
“I’m just another human being in awe of the universe and its workings yet driven by a constant need to understand it. People fascinate me. Their passion, their philosophies and what they believe to be their purpose; and how everything they do is ultimately influenced these few aspects. Thus the passion in literature and photography”
We decided to showcase some of her interesting work attached with a stamp as date when the idea was conceived or the photo was taken. It is like a unique signature to every capture.
“In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.”
//Seven billion people. Seven billion stories.
And all we see is one.
How blissfully oblivious we live our lives, failing to notice the million little ways we touch each other.
The million little ways we could.
Because hidden underneath all those layers are wars they are fighting that we have no idea about.
Strangers aren’t all as strange as they seem.//
v.x.mmxvi
“It just fascinates me how intricately our lives have been woven into each other. Every day we meet a few hundred people who give us an opportunity to hear them, learn from them and love them. This was intended to be a gentle reminder that we let some of those people in”
//Sleepwalkers, sleepwalking to the rhythm of each other’s footsteps.// 06:03 ix.iii.mmxvii
“Every other shot I took was in focus but blurred seems captures the scene so much better. It is fascinating how people can be so engrossed in their day to day chores that they forget they are even alive. Almost as if they are sleepwalking.
This was just an attempt at capturing that haze of life”
//IKIGAI
Lights. Flickering. Streets. Gushing.
Dot to dot.
My feet traced constellations onto the cracked pavement.
A fire smoldered on the sidewalk.
Where am I going?
“Taxi!”
What am I doing?
“Where to, ma’am?”
“I wish I knew.”
The lights gently caressed the sides of the cab window.
The old cabbie turned his expectant gaze.
“Ma’am?”
He had a certain calmness about him,
An effortlessness. In finding his way.
“Where do the children of the sky go?
Where do you go when your heart dares to rip your jaw apart,
pry open your skull
and pour silly dreams into it?
Where do you go with full heads and empty roads?”
Silence creeped in through the crack in the window.
The cars seemed to have slowed down.
Blink. Beep. On. Off.
The lights are taunting me.
I could do it.
I could just follow their cosmic trail.
“Where do you go when it’s all out of focus?
When the closer you seem to get, the blurrier it becomes.
When you realize you’ve been going round in circles living the same day- the same moment over and over again.
Where do you go?”
A pair of old eyes glistening with electric paranoia met mine through a rear view mirror.
Where do I go?
“To all the wrong places, of course.” Somewhere, somehow, the crisp air seemed to have locked into place.
“You will charge across all the wrong bridges.
Stumble into dark alleyways leading to absolutely nowhere.
Fall into soulless pits. Howl into the nothingness.
You will swim to the very depths of the oceans
that flow within your bones.
You will chase a dazzling, chaotic, ultraviolet sundown halfway across the world
only to realize
you were right where you were supposed to be all along.
Going all the wrong places, making all the right mistakes.”
Blink. Beep. On. Off. Red. Stop.
They seem to say.
“So where to, ma’am?” He asked with a chuckle gurgling in his throat that sounded a painful lot like hope.
“To the empty roads.
Of course.”// xxi.xii.mmxvi
“Ikigai is a Japanese concept loosely translating to ‘a reason for being’. A purpose. One much sought after by all of us. This is an ode to the hopeless optimist in me. Maybe even like a lullaby to sing myself during times of despair”
//What if we took the dates out of the equation. If there were no calendar. And every night, the universe just quietly reset itself back into day.
Would you be able to tell your days apart?”
Yeah, there’d be the day the eggs in our balcony nest hatched
and the day the blind woman saw me looking at her and smiled back
and the day we all cuddled up in our blankets and slurped noodles to the hum of the television as we nudged our skills open and poured dreams into our heads.
What is today?// x.x.mm
“Human perception of time is memory. But sometimes I find myself unable to tell the days apart for having made no real memories in those days. This was me looking back upon the old pages acknowledging and appreciating the little things.”
//Hook her up to the IV and let the dreams gush through her bleeding veins.//
xxvii.xii.xvi
“This is a metaphor for the poetry, the music; the words and the art that runs through my veins. They invigorate me, breathe life into me and give me purpose. They are just as much blood as ambrosia.”
//Is a cage still a cage if flowers bloom from within it?// v.i.mmxvii
“For the times the feel limited and caged in our environment, know that the flowers can still bloom from within us. It’s intriguing how the gentle flowers have the strength to bend prison bars”
//Does it ever happen to you?
During the quieter moments of the day when everything seems to slow down.
Every movement, every breath, every pitch tone echoing in your head
is amplified.
The ticking off the clock, the persistent hum of the construction
And the rippling of the goose bumps on your own flesh.
Everything just seems so much more real and detailed and alive.
This is actually happening. I’m actually here.
Seventeen years of a very quiet existence has brought me to this singularly
uneventful very quiet moment.
And that’s not much.
But it’s also everything.//3:16 xxviii.xii.mmxvi
“This was an attempt at documenting the intense realization that dawns upon us that we are alive.
In the quiet moments of the day, the sheer brilliance of the universe; the fact that there are billions of planets orbiting stars, while bacteria silently coexist in my cells, while people wage wars in Syria all while I sit here and eat a cookie never fails to amaze me”
//Dissolving into the foot cube of faint colloidal mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and lost purpose that surrounds. Losing myself into the air that will always be more me than i ever will.// 3:05 xxix.iv.mmxvii
“As artists we are constantly influenced by the art we consume. Everything we believe, our ideas, our philosophies have found root in what we have been taught. Every idea we conceive has already been conceived by thinkers far more articulate and wise than ourselves. In such a world how do we how much us is truly us?”
It’s incredible and perhaps a good sign how she complements her work with words to others and asks for their thoughts with a willingness to learn more with an open mind. The Uncommon Box congratulates the picture perfect writing for each of her photographs and wishes that this works wonders for her to accomplish her ambitions in life.
Social media links:
Content development by Tasneem Bharmal.
Do you also wish to share your photo stories like Jyotsna on our forum? Do you know someone who deserves a special feature ?
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