Tasveer, the photo gallery, is presenting ‘Silver Screen’ by Fawzan Husain. The exhibition, that opened on June 22, is a series of images taking a closer look at our prolific film industry — Bollywood. Husain’s photographs, based on a popular theme — Bollywood and glamour — goes a step beyond to present scenes which films buffs do not get to see on the screen.
“I took two years to complete my project and must have used over a 100 gigabytes of my digital camera to record,” Husain told Metrolife on the eve of the inauguration. “The photographs have been taken in studios including Filmcity, Filmistan, Kamalistan, Cinevista Studio and Nataraj Studio. They were also taken in outdoor locations of Mumbai like the Gateway of India, Town Hall, Airport, National Park and J J Hospital,” he adds.
Being born and brought up in the city of dreams, Bombay's film industry became an integral part of Fawzan's life. What struck him the most as an outsider to the industry was the air of glitz present even during the making of a film, the huge sets created and replaced constantly.
His photographs record candidly the incredibly vast number of people involved in the making of a film right from the director to the light man, trolley puller, spot boy, fog man, driver, shower man, wind blower, item girls, junior artistes, besides actors and the motley group of visitors coming in from far just to catch a glimpse of the famous stars. Everything that is so essentially ‘Bollywood’… the varied components, that come together and work in harmony to make a film, are depicted in Fawzan's photographs.
He shoots a different view of Bollywood by capturing behind the scene actions on the sets — no frontal portraits, no posing for his camera. His photographs portray the real picture, the real people without the glamour, artifacts and larger than life idea usually associated with Bollywood.
He is the camera behind the camera capturing scenes like Director Tanuja Chandra directing a car scene sitting in the corner of a car or Naseeruddin Shah directing from a moving car.
Fawzan Husain (born November 1965) is a post-graduate in journalism from the Bombay School of Journalism and is currently a lecturer there as well as at SNDT Women's University, Bombay. With over 17 years of experience as a photojournalist, he has travelled extensively across India and has done several international assignments. Specialising in editorial photography, he has been Principal Photographer, India Today (1993-2006), Senior Photographer, Mid-Day (1989-1993) and contributing photographer for Asia Week for six years.
Fawzan is a widely exhibited and published photographer and his work is included in permanent collections at The Kiyosato Museum of Photographic Arts, Japan and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA.
The exhibition is on till July 8 from 11 am to 6 pm and is by appointment only on Saturdays and Sundays.
