Colour Coded

Photographer Hirak Dutta is one such artist who is battling colour-blindness. “There are various bifurcations in colour-blindness. My eyes are unable to see certain colours,hues,saturation and brightness. I may see only part of red,grey and some blue. I cannot travel at dawn and dusk for more than 40 km,” says Dutta,44,who lives and works in Delhi.

Nonetheless,he has created a body of work that explores the colours that he is unable to perceive. His recent solo,Colour Blind,at the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society were saturated with colour. He has shot across the country,and his abstract works emphasise hues and forms that are minimal and yet beautiful. His portraits and travel photographs display a compassion for the human condition,but he does not approach it without a sense of mystery. Dutta says that while his battle with colour-blindness continues,black-and-white photography is his comfort zone. The exhibition showcased nearly 40 images from his personal collection of 30,000. Dutta plans to make his exhibitions an annual affair. Colour Blind will travel to Mumbai,Kolkata and Chandigarh.

“When I am taking a photograph,I go with what looks good to me. I don’t know how the person will perceive what I see,” says the photographer who began as a photo-journalist in 1988 while working on the now-closed Congress Weekly Newspaper. “When I started as a secretary with the government of India,I was using a Zenith camera,shooting on film and working as a freelance photographer,” he says. In 2000,on a motorcycle trip from Delhi to Chandigarh,he decided to convert his hobby into an art. “I learned on the field and had my first group show in 2008,titled Visions. It was inaugurated by Raghu Rai,” he concludes.