A Photographer’s Perspective
My name is Madhur Dhingra and I am a Minimalist / Surreal / Fine Art / photographer based both in Toronto (Canada) & New Delhi (India). I was born an only child to my parents in Delhi, into a family torn apart by the aftermath of the India-Pakistan partition. The India-Pakistan partition bloodbath resulted in my then affluent family living in Pakistan to migrate to New Delhi - India.
The exodus from our ancestral land in Pakistan was so sudden and hurried that my family had no choice but to flee overnight, leaving behind everything. The only possessions they carried were the clothes on their bodies. And they weren’t the only ones. Millions were rendered homeless and millions massacred on their way to India. That year was the bloody year of 1947.
This resulted in massive insecurity within the family members. Though born much later in Delhi I was literally forced to inherit all that trauma, never being allowed to forget the naked scars of partition. What resulted was a void inside me.
Spirituality and photography come to me as a fulfilment of a void that has plagued me since my childhood. Emptiness and restlessness have become an integral part of me, and you will find this reflected in my images and style. Most of my work reflects a search where I seek answers to fundamental questions about life, its meaning, and its purpose, while trying to understand the ultimate nature of Reality.
Interestingly photography became a tool along the way towards thispersonal search, for answers to fundamental questions regarding life, meaning, and the ultimate nature of Reality.This quest has taken me to every corner of spiritual India and also surrounding Himalayan regions, including Nepal, Bhutan, Zanskar, and Ladakh. Along the way, I have engaged with Buddhist philosophers, Vedantic yogis, spiritualists, scientists, and charlatans alike. Many of these images were captured within remote Himalayan monasteries dating back over 1,500 years.
Series: Shunyata: The Ultimate Void
Shot in Zanskar, Ladakh, known as Little Tibet. I would sit inside these centuries-old monasteries for hours, hearing the prayer gong echo through the main hall, watching the filtering light play hide and seek with the shadows.
Series: Shambala: A Paradise on Earth
The people of Ladakh understand the sacred importance of leisure, and their lives blend intrinsically with it. Through these images I've tried to bring back the peace and tranquility I found there.
Constant interaction with Vedic and Buddhist scholars has led me to move beyond the traditional concept of a "Creator God" found in organized religion. Such frameworks often fail to comprehend the unconditioned, non-dual, and omnipresent force of existence. To me, the divine is not a glorified "personality" sitting apart from the universe, directing the minute details of daily life. Instead, I explore the idea that the Universal Mind does not exist separately from the universe, but within it and as it.
The universe was not arbitrarily created by outside intervention; it is self-born and governed by the eternal Law of Cause and Effect. In this view, the impressions of all objects lie dormant within the depths of the Universal Mind until activated by the working of Karma. They are then projected into the space-time dimensions we recognize as the material world. The universe is not only self-actuating, but self-determining.
And as for what exactly am I? I am that Eternal, Pure, Blissful & Primary Consciousness
As for my photography, my solo exhibitions and imagery, have been highly acclaimed and exhibited in India, Europe, Canada, and America. My artworks are held in private collections and galleries across the world. Isolation resulting from COVID-19 gave me time to search rigorously for a style I could call entirely my own. After many months of hard work and perseverance, I finally succeeded. Many international magazines and galleries have published my work, calling my style unique and refreshing.
Shooting random people on the streets has always fascinated me. Those strange, unknown faces with their uncharted expressions and emotions enthral me to my very core. I love spontaneously created moments, using them to create artistic images in my own style. What initially started as stark realism in street photography has now given way to abstract, impressionist, surreal, and painterly imagery. Waiting endlessly for "the decisive moment" does not attract me anymore. I now prefer to blur images and faces, creating movement in my own way and style.
No fixed rules of photography dictate my journey now.
I finally plan to conclude my search in Banaras / Varanasi at Manikarnika Ghat. This is also called the Burning Ghat or GhatOfThe Dead.
Varanasi is one of world's oldest living cities, and rightly referred to as the spiritual capital of India. Also known as 'Kashi' its ancient name.
Mark Twain said, "Banaras is older than history, older than tradition, older even than legend, and looks twice as old as all of them put together."
Death has always fascinated me along with its myriad unsolved questions and mystery that surrounds it. I have raised questions about it time and again when in the company of mystics, researching through spiritual books and findings of science. I have finally come to an understanding that life (Consciousness) like any other energy is indestructible. Though there does come an end to the experiences undergone by it when it is in the finite mortal garb. Just as sound goes back into silence but never lost, too the individual self or consciousness merges back into the fundamental ever flowing sea of Universal Consciousness (God), from which it may re-emerge once again another time. Edvard Munch poetically wrote," From my rotting body, flowers shall grow, and I am in them and this is Eternity".
Series: Anant: In Search of the Absolute
Shot on Laxman Jhoola in Rishikesh, an ancient suspension bridge whose roots trace back to the Ramayana. Pilgrims, saints, beggars, thieves, motorcycles, cows, and monkeys all push through its five-foot width. I once watched a monkey snatch an old woman's bag and dash away, then stop, turn, and bare its teeth at her. These rogues hold the bridge to ransom, but no one hurts them: to pilgrims, they are descendants of the monkey god Hanuman.
Life for me as a photographer continues, my search to understand the nature of Reality also continues.
Bio:
Madhur Dhingra is a minimalist, surreal, and fine-art photographer based between Toronto and New Delhi. He left college at seventeen to join the Merchant Navy as a deck cadet, rising to navigating officer before returning to India for family and business. Photography came later, as he puts it, to fill a lifelong void. He studied at Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi and has held solo shows across India, France, and the United States, with work published in international magazines.
