Bhutan in black & white

Serena Chopra’s affection for Bhutan shines strongly through her photographs. Chopra has been documenting the diminutive Himalayan kingdom’s inevitable tryst with modernity for the past five years. She says that Bhutan will remain rooted in its faith, identity and culture while making this transition in her book Bhutan: A Certain Modernity (PhotoInk; Rs 1,500). Her classical, evocative black and white photographs span everyday life in Bhutan from the bustling, modern capital of Thimphu with its beauty salons, pool clubs, teens smartly dressed for disco nights, to the quiet, contemplative gaze of the herder, the nuns, the farmer in the remote regions where the traditional way of life remains frozen in time.

Chopra was granted access to many areas that have not yet been opened up to outsiders and the best photographs are the portraits of villagers from these regions. She knows exactly how to grab the essence of a moment so that when one sees her images one is involuntarily drawn to them.

Her black-and-white photographs offer a time capsule, perhaps the last record, of age-old traditions and the way of life of Bhutan, capturing a joy and dignity that the reader will immediately share as her subjects stare unflinchingly at the camera. However, what jars in this otherwise impeccable book is the inclusion of humdrum images of building construction and cityscapes of Thimphu. Although Chopra provides captions, the text is spare; instead, the book relies almost entirely on her illuminating photography.