Rahul: This lawman composes poems through the lens

Mail News Service

Jamshedpur, May 13: A man in the latter stage of youth was closely focusing his mobile phone on an object not decipherable on an initial, cursory glance. Later he got up slowly from his kneeling position and surveyed the mobile screen closely and gradually his lips broadened as he smiled to himself in ostensible delight. He had shot a photo of a Dragonfly balancing on a ledge of grass. This correspondent was curious to know what made the man happy. On being asked, he showed the ‘capture’ on his mobile screen. It was, to put it mildly, a breathtaking shot of a Dragonfly balancing on a wafer-thin ledge of grass with the background blurred! A common and otherwise nondescript feature of mundane life frozen into a poem in ode to nature for posterity.

The young man in focus is Rahul Das, jovial, easy going and sans the high-nosed air of the successful legal professional and much-admired photographer whose creative genius of transforming the most ordinary into extraordinary compositions through the camera lens makes even connoisseurs of the art linger pensively on each photo frame of his.

In a tet-a-tete with The Avenue Mail recently, Rahul readily agreed to answer pertinent queries. 

Replying to an initial query, Rahul Das, eldest of three siblings, stated that he was from a lineage of legal practitioners. “My great grandfather, Bipin Behari Das was a reputed Magistrate in undivided Bengal. My grandfather, Surendra Nath Das was a famous lawyer of Bihar (Jharkhand had not been created then), Bengal and Odisha. My uncle, Kumar Shankar Das is a very famed criminal lawyer. My younger brother, Rajiv is an ace computer professional and mom Monisha Das, the driving spirit behind our growing up and what we are today. My Sister, Runa is a homemaker now settled in Pune.”

Rahul said that he was always inquisitive since his teething days to know how his father shot memorable pictures. Since he was too young to handle a camera, he opted to go in for painting that he learned under the tutelage of Government School of Arts, Kolkata alumnus Partho Chowdhury. But as he moved up in life, paucity of time blocked his creative pursuits with the paint brush on canvas. But the urge to express visually persisted in him until at last he discovered the magic of the ‘other language’ in the camera.

“I believe, everything has its own beauty. Visualization, right perspective and perfect light conditions matter to shoot a compelling photo,” observed Rahul Das who is the Legal Officer at world famed fashion designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee’s international setup in Kolkata.

On being asked whether he chose a subject first and then clicked or was it the other way around, Rahul spontaneously replied, “In fact, it depends on the situation and the subject. Following the second option sometimes results in ‘accidental� creativity. The most challenging part in photography is to randomly visualize and compose within a time frame of a couple of seconds as the moment you decide to capture is usually very-very short as in cases of birds, animals and insects. A chance missed is a chance gone forever.”

Rahul Das was rather expansive while defining the thoughts behind camera compositions. He averred, “Many among us perceive that the more expensive the gears, the greater are the qualitative aspects of photo shots. It has been proved time and again that images are created through the viewfinder by the photographer and not exactly by the gear itself. Today, smartphones are also capable of creating mind blowing images. The trick is to create the magic by remaining within the limitations of the gear one uses. Another norm of photography that I follow is ‘The Rule of Third’ while composing subjects and for that, I trust the grid lines that come with all cameras and smartphones. To put it in a nutshell, I love to photograph anything that appeals to my expressive senses, appeals to my eyes and heart. But macro photography is my favorite form.”

Rahul’s photos have been regular features in National Geographic and Vivo India Mobile. He was lauded for his creative brilliance for his contributions on a featured subject, ‘Vanishing Girls.’

On the fad of photographing with trend blazing cameras, the legal professional for whom photography is an unstoppable passion, Rahul Das was blunt while saying, “Frankly, camera make or model hardly matters to me. Most of my shots are taken with digital cameras on manual mode. I also use my smartphone on numerous occasions as it is the only camera I have with me all the time and it does not make me miss on a photo opportunity.”

Rahul feels that in the present day setup advanced mobile phones leave a very thin line of difference with a digital camera. “Apart from minor technicalities, the most important aspect is that the camera gives you the freedom to reach out to your subject without compromising on the image quality while a cellphone camera struggles on this score. However, creativity can be brought into play by sticking to their respective limitations.”

Finally, when prodded about his opinion on being a photographer, Rahul shot, “Photography to me is an addiction. By being a photographer, your views and feelings don a positive outlook. You find nature’s creative imprint on everything. Your point of view about everything you see changes and a sensation of positivity permeates within you.”

At the conclusion, Rahul seemed to be closely observing a pigeon craning its neck out from a parapet of a a building nearby.