New York in Black and White

I'm usually in love with Chroma. And recently my work has been all about color. Actually my work has always been all about color. But every once in a while. I will take a walk through NYC photographing in Black and White.



It's always fascinating when you strip New York of all that hue and what remains are shapes, reflections and edges. Here are a couple of images I shot recently that I want to share with you.

Resurfacing with AIPAD

I've been quiet. Quietly attending to my new born daughter, Siya. She is now 3 months old and we have all survived the insanity. It's been special beyond words.

AIPAD was my first photo event of the year and I was very happy to see the works of the following three artists

George Georgiou who I have previously blogged about on Ishaara. I've always been a fan of his images and to see them in person made me incredibly happy. Here is an image from his series Fault Lines.



© George Georgiou

I also loved the prints of Robert Platt Lynes who's works are currently on view at the Steven Kasher Gallery.

All three prints I saw on the wall were sold within the first couple days of AIPAD! No surprise there. Here is an image

for you. Also feel free to read Elizabeth Avedon's words on his works.



And finally Elinor Caruchi's prints were on view with Sasha Wolf Gallery. Elinor's series Born looks particularly gorgeous in person. Here is one of my favorite images from the series.



© Elinor Caruchi

Lord Ganesha

The final image of Lord Ganesha from my series Darshan.



© Manjari Sharma, Lord Ganesha, Darshan

B.V.S.P school and Making of Lord Ganesha

Hello Readers,

Here are some images on the making of Lord Ganesha followed by a video of Lord Ganesha set. The video was filmed by Roberto Farruggio who shadowed me in India and it was edited by Lily Huang. All images behind the scenes below were also photographed by Roberto Farruggio and by a few are by Varun Sathe, a talented student of Bhartiya Vidya Peeth School of Photography.

My New York Times Article links specifically mentions Bhartiya Vidya Peeth school of Photography in Pune. Also known as B.V.S.P.
B.V.S.P's students and instructors were pro active in taking part in the Darshan project, Ashish Gurbani formerly assisted me on the making of Maa Laxmi, and Mukul Anand, Varun Sathe, Urmit Talavia and Cheryl Zorini Bhorania to name a few were frequenters on the set working towards making Darshan a success.

B.V.S.P's role in this process was integral and they were true agents of art. By offering their school's resources, their premises and equipment  as well as their students, BVSP truly promoted collaboration. I would take a moment to look into the school and what it offers. Rajan Chaughule, president and dean at B.V.S.P in specific was a facilitator in every way he could be for the project. I also want to specifically thank Siddhartha Mudaliar, an instructor at B.V.S.P whose extra set of eyes on the set were much appreciated.



















[vimeo http://vimeo.com/32889841]

Darshan's new images on New York Times, Lens Blog

Please enjoy the article that was published today on New York Times, Lens Blog. This article was written by Niko Koppel and published by james Estrin. A big thank you to both of the. And again a special thank you to my backers for the support.

Darshan Talk at SVA tonight!

Dear Friends,
Owing to the successful fundraising of my project Darshan, I was in India September through October creating and producing the next four images in the series. I'd to invite you to my talk at the School of Visual Arts which will highlight some new footage and images shot in India.

Date: Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011
Time: 7 pm
Venue: 136 West 21st street, Room 418 F

My friend and shadow

I am happy to announce my collaboration with Roberto Farruggio who is a New York based sicilian filmmaker and has been shadowing me for Darshan for the last several weeks. Roberto and I met in spain during "Espacio Nudage" a festival we were both invited and selected to attend in Spain this January. Roberto assisted me for a job for AOL in Madrid and we soon knew we would get along like peas in a pod. This friendship grew and has led him following my recent project Darshan all the way to India.

Darshan my most recent pride and joy, was a project that got successfully funded on Kickstarter a month ago. I have just freshly returned from Mumbai where I was deep into production creating the next four images in this series of 9. I just wanted to share Roberto's work with you and say that many of my behind the scenes stills and movies to come, will be owing to his ardent following. Below is a picture of him in india with me capturing footage for Darshan.



Here is a quick sample of Roberto's work below but I encourage you to take a look at his style and imagery on his website.



Please keep tuned to some incredible production stills of how Darshan was manufactured and touched by many people's hard and ardent work on sets.