The coupling of two crafts

Eight years after they got hitched, Bernadette Lobo and Philips John decided to tour Europe and marry their passions — photography and writing respectively — with one another’s.

The former marketing manager and advertising professional came back to Bengaluru and, a couple of months ago, hosted an exhibition of photo poems, ‘Somewhere in the World’. These were 32 picks from photographs shot in Paris, Prague and Amsterdam.

“As we worked together, we found that our thought processes were more alike than we realised — we were trying to capture or convey similar things even though we did it through different media,” says Bernadette, or Berny as she calls herself. “We’re both subtle, even quiet, in what we say.”

“I fell asleep beside the river / When I awoke, I saw an inverted tree / In the water and panicked. / Then I realised it was just a reflection. / We go to sleep dreaming of revolution / And wake up chasing normalcy.” The reflection in water of clouds floating across the blue sky, a tree rising up, accompanies this text.

To her, photography is not about glamour but rather a means to capture quiet moments, a form of self-expression. “I know it sounds cliched but that’s how it has always been for me,” admits the marketing professional who, after a 10-year stint in the industry, quit her job in favour of becoming a freelance photographer a year ago.

“Growing up,” she continues, “there were a lot of cameras at home and I was always interested in photography. It was a hobby, but a hobby I took seriously.” Philips says he has been writing for long but took to the online platform, his Facebook page Labyrinths, to write short fiction and poems with an accompanying picture four years ago. “This was usually something I downloaded from the internet,” he says. This was the beginning of penning pieces to go alongside images.

“But then, earlier this year, Berny suggested that I continue to write but she’d give me the pictures. Now, I work harder at making every word count because this will be framed and go up on people’s walls,” adds Philip who also co-runs creative boutique 48 Degrees that helps create stories for brands. “But, for me, it’s more or less an extension of what I do otherwise.”

So have they been continuing this in Bengaluru as well? “Yes, we’re making a few for the new store of Blossom Book House,” says Philip. They are themed around the love of books. “We want it to appeal to regulars at the bookstore as well as others coming in to relate to them,” Berny chips in. As of now, they are finalising the layout with the bookstore’s owner Mayi Gowda. “We plan to come up with 15 to 20 photo poems,” she says.