Lord Ganesha

The final image of Lord Ganesha from my series Darshan.



© Manjari Sharma, Lord Ganesha, Darshan

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.

Darshan: Photographic Series on Indian Deities

I would like to Introduce you to my new project. It's called Darshan and I am trying to reach a targeted goal with this series. Please view the video and visit this link if you feel connected to the concept. If you would like to spread the word on it here is a short link http://t.co/wzrcaP6

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/25732686 w=400&h=225]

Darshan from Manjari Sharma on Vimeo.

Madrid, Spain

On the sand dunes of Sam

In Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, these two camel rider's obliged me and let me make some images. Here is my favorite one from that session.

Siddharth Sanghvi

I was commissioned to photograph Siddharth Sanghvi, an Indian prodigy and extremely well known author of our times for Canteen Magazine. Sanghvi has been compared to Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth in his writing styles, especially for using settings of magical realism, and themes such as karma, love and sexuality extensively in his very applauded book The Last Song of Dusk. Here are a few of my favorite images from the shoot. Above all, he was a delight to work with and a great person to brainstorm about life, love and image making.

On the way to Nidhivan

In my travels in India I visited teh holy city of Vrindavan, a place of mystery, religion and a superior form of organized chaos. This image was made on my way to Nidhivan.

Limited Edition Print Sale to support Japan

My image, "Hope" is soon to be a part of the Wall Space Gallery page. The Wall Space gallery has organized an online limited edition print sale by various artists to support Japan and it's current Tsunami and Earthquake struck condition.

Please visit the link and donate. All images are a signed and at limited edition of ten priced humbly at $50. The print I have donated is below and will be soon to appear on the Wall Space's website. In the mean time if you would like to support the cause, please spread the word by sharing the information on social networks. Should you have any questions, please get in touch with me. Thank you to Crista Dix for putting this together.

Bada Bagh, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan

On the day I went to Bada Bagh, I met a very warm family who allowed me to make some images of them with the 4x5. The camera seemed to gain their interest, they asked me a lot of questions about the format; Some of them included if this camera made movies and if this meant they would appear on the television the next day.

The Cleaning Lady

This image was shot in Madrid, Spain about a month and a half ago. I will be posting more random moments from my recent travels as I slowly go through some 4x5 scans.

O-BAMAA

I have been doing a fair bit of shooting on the 4x5. Recently I made the above image of this street vendor, (panwaala)... I happened to turn my attention to look in the opposite direction. On the busy streets of ancient Vrindavan in north India, stood this billboard, proud and tall. "Rupa" the famous Indian underwear company just released a newly designed men's brief called O-BAAMA. Just couldn't resist making a picture of this hip international branding sensibility.

An affair with the 4x5

Im beginning a new project here in Mumbai, details to follow but the project will be shot on a beautiful 4x5 camera lent to me by my close fried, charming and very talented Fashion Photographer miss Erika Hokanson. Also I had the pleasure and fortune of being graciously assisted on this test shot by Simon Biswas who is a complete rockstar in his own right. Pictured in this image is the fabulous miss Kiran Sharma, a.k.a. my mom.


Here are the first few tests from that camera. Excited to work with a great lab that I can run film to and get images professionally scanned and printed by in Mumbai.