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| Photo © Rohit Vohra-All Rights Reserved |
I do like the phrase 'stolen moments' when it relates to street photography, since I agree that candid photography is a form of 'theft'...after all, it was Henri Cartier-Bresson who chose the phrase of images à la sauvette, which may be translated as "images on the fly" or "stolen images, as a title for one of his books. The phrase was then translated to the more widely known "the decisive moment"by the English publisher of the same book.
And where else other than India can it be most practiced? Actually, in a lot of more places, but India occupies a significant place in the pantheon of interesting countries to photograph in the streets. As I often say, it takes considerable courage to photograph in black & white in India...avoiding the seduction of color that attracts so many of us. That is precisely what Rohit Vohra did in his Stolen Moments galleries...stolen moments in the streets of India in monochrome.
Just have a look at the decisive moment in the above photograph. Possibly made in the chaotic alleys of Old Delhi, a woman gestures with her hand trying to gain passage in front of a harried rickshaw driver, while her child and the driver glare at each other. One could write a short story based on this split second moment.
Rohit Vohra is a street photographer based in New Delhi whose photographs are often about contact with humans and basic living elements. He is also a co-founder of APF Magazine.
