Photo exhibition on life in France in the ‘70s comes to town

Parmanand Dalwadi has captured the humour, romance, conflicts and vignettes of everyday life he witnessed in Paris

What did France look like in the 1970s? An ongoing photography exhibition in Bengaluru is offering a throwback.

Titled ‘A trip to France, 1970’, the show features the works of Parmanand Dalwadi, a professor of photography in Gujarat. It is a travelling exhibition organised by Alliance Francaise Bangalore and the India Photo Festival. It reached the city early this month.

Fifty photos are on display and these capture the humour and tenderness of everyday French life but also the protests that rocked it back in the day. Parmanand had clicked these on his Nikon F camera as he walked around the French capital during a trip in the 70s.

Dalwadi looks back on the nine months he spent there: “I met my wife there, in an Indian hostel. When I came back (to India), I went to Calcutta and married her.” His wife, Radium Bhattacharya, is seen in a few of these photos. “Paris is like no other place. There’s love in the air and I have tried to capture these moments,” he shares.

In another photo, you see a woman applying make-up in a restaurant but you also catch a glimpse of the interior design prevalent in those days. Though his personal favourite is the photo of a couple standing in front of Notre Dame, the iconic Gothic cathedral, he points out.

Dalwadi says photography has the ability to elevate the ordinary into the extraordinary and preserve them for posterity. “In those days, people in Paris were not appreciative about being photographed as they saw this life every day (sic). But when I came back to India, one of my friends said, ‘These photos are incredible. All the French people must see these’,” recalls Dalwadi, who is a guest faculty at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.

Dalwadi is inspired by the work of French humanist photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is hailed as the master of candid photography. He had assisted Henri on the latter’s photography trip to India. Henri then asked Dalwadi to join him in Paris and work with Pierre Gassmann, another legendary French lensman. That’s how ‘A trip to France, 1970’ happened.

The show is on view at Alliance Française de Bangalore, Vasanth Nagar, till June 30, 9.30 am-5.30 pm.