What is good and what is bad? What is art and what is not? Who is a photographer and who is a photo artist? What is beautiful and what is ugly? And who decides what is what?
Everyone. That’s who.
Perspective. It’s all about perspective.
What I find beautiful might not be so in your eyes. But does that mean that that particular thing is not beautiful?
What I look as art might be kitsch for you. But does that mean kitsch is not art? Or does that mean that the person who created Kitsch is not a creative person or a thinking person? Not all.
It is all about interpretation and perspective. And each one’s interpretations and perspective is right for its owner.
Does that mean we have to accept that everything is right when we feel it is not? You cannot do that as long as you are alive.
Humans are born with what I call the looking-gene or perspective. Which means there is no way you are going to always accept the way I look at things or vice versa.
It would suffice if we can accept the fact that there are many interpretations, many perspectives and many different ways of looking at things. And all are right –from the individual’s point of view.
And there is just one requirement to do that –Openness.
This image is one of the traffic lights in front of Cubbon Park in Bangalore. I shot it a few minutes after sunset, while waiting for the signal to turn green. Hundreds of people see this traffic light everyday (or rather don’t see it). But this is the way I SEE IT.
Does that mean I am wrong in my `seeing’ and all the others are right? Or those others are somehow plebian in their `seeing’ because I was able to see it differently? Of course not.
I am right and so are the others. And irrespective of how we all see it –the traffic light remains. But the beauty of it is that, the traffic light lends itself to different interpretations and not bothered about any interpretation but just carries on being. If only I could achieve that zen-ness!
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