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A commercial photographer's lips go places for her selfie project, 'The Kissing Book'
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Last year, while shooting for the Hindustan Times Brunch Bollywood Special Collector’s Edition, Natasha Hemrajani hit upon an idea that she now hopes will end in a “small, happy, coffee-table book". The 36-year-old Mumbai-based commercial photographer was asked to shoot Nawazuddin Siddiqui among other character actors, such as Shabana Azmi, Irrfan, Pankaj Kapur and Manoj Bajpayee, for the magazine.
“At the end of a wonderful shoot, I asked Nawaz if I could take a fan girl picture of myself with him, and he agreed. I asked him if I could give him a kiss on the cheek in the picture, and Nawaz broke into his first unguarded grin of the day. He blushed, laughed and agreed. And so I set up my self-portrait frame and got a colleague to take the picture. That was the beginning of ‘The Kissing Book’," explains Hemrajani, who went on to make the rather unusual request of at least five other celebrities.
Hemrajani’s photographs can be understood within the context of performative photography, as it references the role of both, the photographer who engages with the subject through his/her gaze and the collaborative nature of creation which lends photography its aesthetics. The photographs play an important role in breaking down barriers, even as they reference our current obsession for cellphone-driven self-portraits, which in itself is not a new phenomenon.
“Also, we’re not a physically demonstrative bunch of people in this country, and I like the shock value of these photographs," she adds.
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