Portraits of a City

On Saturday at the Photoink gallery in Delhi,Bougot exhibited “Chandigarh: Portrait of a City” — a collection of 75 works by him about the city and its people. Clicked during his visit to Chandigarh in 2009 and 2010, the photos portray various aspects of the life in the quiet city — photos of government officials, shots of buildings by Le Corbusier and even the interiors of a local cinema hall. One particularly interesting shot is that of the back entrance of the Legislative Assembly in Chandigarh. Shot in the the winter of 2010,the picture is composed of three horizontal layers — a garden,the building and its parking lot.

Bougot insists that what started as an experiment to shoot Le Corbusier’s works evolved into a profile of the city itself. “I realised that along with shooting the buildings,I was also interested in shooting its people and their lives,” he says. For instance,his picture of the Panjab University’s boys’ hostel in Sector 14 — a long shot of the red brick building with clothes hanging out to dry on various terraces and a student studying in the sun — throws light on the simple student life there.

Charmed by the Punjabi hospitality,Bougot intends to travel to Chandigarh again some day. “I’m planning to hold a small exhibition of my works there,as a small thank you to the warmest people I’ve met,” he says.

“Chandigarh: Portrait of a City” is on at Photoink,Jhandewalan,Delhi,till October 27. Contact: 28755940