Creation in progress Photo

Photographer’s Note

The Chhau dance, a folk dance form of Bengal,is epical in content, and is based on various episodes of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata the Puranas. It is performed with beautiful decorated mask of the concerned character. CHORIDA, a small village of Purulia district is famous for this art form. This village has produced many national and international award winners.

The masks are made of clay and paper and are produced by a particular group of people who have been engaged in this business for generations (Sutradhara). As it is impossible for the artistes to show mood variations through facial expressions , the expression in the mask's face is very important to illustrate different moods. So it needs extremely high artistic perfection and knowledge of the epic and mythology for the artist to make the right mask with depicting perfect mood.

I took this photo during my recent trip to Purulia when I have tried to capture decoration process of a mask of Goddess Durga.

pauloog, pabau, rajju has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

pauloog (6521) 2008-12-30 2:08

Hello Sumit,
A photo that learns us something, and this with a good composition, centered around the diagonal between the maskand the hands.
Regards,
Paul

pabau (486) 2008-12-30 11:21

bonjour Sumit
thanks for this discovery by your note and by the details of your photography.
you seized how, with tools, the worker (a man or a woman ?) hands bring the shiny mask to life.
pascal

ryno (4605) 2009-07-09 7:21

Hi Sumit, this is also an interesting still life. Great light and contrast between the various materials.You've included lots of interesting detail, noatbly the craftman's hands and some of the tools of his trade. Nice one!
Ryno