Writer and SAJAer Amitava Kumar blogs about someone whose photos you have been seeing on SAJAforum and elsewhere for some time now: Preston Merchant.
With a name like Preston Merchant, and with the sort of work he does, documenting the farflung Indian diaspora, you’d have expected him to be a good Parsi boy. No, he says, he isn’t. (He’s good, but he isn’t Parsi.) In which case, his interest and diligence is all the more remarkable.
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What is it that unites these photographs? For the most part, you’d think it is the color of the skin of the folks portrayed in them. But that’s not all. It is more the colors that Preston finds to put into his frames that tell a unique story of the movement of peoples.
Preston's working on a book about the diaspora and you can see highlights of his photos from several countries - he calls it "India World" - here. His full archive is at archive.prestonmerchant.com and his 200+ photos from the 2007 SAJA Convention are here.
Take a look at his work and post your comments below. [Photo below of Preston at work by Manish Vij]
