#Scurf176: Conversation with Debjit

The photographer-musican on his creative life and finding meaning in the doing

This is something new I’m giving a try, so bear with me. I’ve crafted a new series of substacks where I will speak with some peers about their art — writing, photographing, philosophising, painting, etc. As I evolve in my own writing routines, I’ve felt enriched and educated by these conversations. This is a practice, I believe, I’m setting up mostly to get to know more from and about other writers, artists, photographers through their lives and stories.

Most of all, I feel that this conversation will work as a way for us to know each other better and cut out the algorithmic style of wondering about we do on the internet. 

My first conversation is with Debjit Banerjee, photographer, musician, writer, who lives between Bir in Himachal Pradesh and Delhi. I was drawn towards his twitter feed and photography, and feel that a lot of you might love reading his thoughts. Hope you enjoy this!

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Hi Debjit! I remember I got to know you through a set of photographs you’d posted on X that had a sense of otherworldliness to them. As much as they were rooted in the very known and familiar parts of Himachal, for me they seemed like someone was seeing them from a past lens, making them appear fogged in that shroud of love that often remembrance and nostalgia comes with. 

How did you come to photography?

I grew up during a time when smartphones were not as prominent as they are now. I remember, at some point in class 8th, begging my father for a phone to take with me to my tuition. He got me a Samsung Guru which had a QVGA camera. I think it was 0.3 megapixels. My memory of that time is mostly blurry, but I do remember finding the sepia mode on the camera and taking photographs of everything around my house. Somehow, I still have one photo of that time. This was right in front of my doorstep. At that time, my father enjoyed gardening and we had a lot of plants around our verandah. I feel this was my introduction to photography, but didn’t know this was some form of photography until I came to Delhi in 2015 and started taking photos in the Metro (even started a hashtag called #DelhiMetroSafar). A lot of Insta-meets were happening at that time. I was new to the city of my dreams and desperately wanted to connect, and the only thing I had to show to others were these Metro photos in my feed. Maybe that’s where I started to take pictures with intention.

Could you talk a little bit about how you choose the photographs you end up sharing with the world? What about those that are not shared?

I feel I have gone through it all at this point. It started with not understanding editing, then doing a lot and then moving to the minimal side of things. Now I am at a very happy place when it comes to editing my photographs wrt what gets picked and what doesn’t. What I share with the world is almost the same as what is inside my memory card. Up until recently, when I was instagramming frequently, my gallery had 9-10 photos in carousels for almost every post since 2021. I would post them all. What I expect to reject are the out-of-focus ones, since I have been shooting on one manual lens since 2019 and don’t have anything else. Sometimes I misfocus and I almost never shoot a burst of images. I struggled a lot with thinking and finding meaning and creating a storyline to photos only to end up in exhaustion sometime around the end of 2021. Then I started to take photographs only for myself and that led me to develop a sense of theme and the visual language that people can now identify in my photographs. The only ones that are not shared are probably photographs of my friends, because I barely shoot people and taking friends’ photos is my way of showing love to them. So I keep those with me. 

Like me you also hold a day job that’s, presumably, detached from photography. How do you reconcile these two sides of your life?

I love it. For the longest time via Instagram, I wanted to show people: “Hey! I can shoot weddings and parties and fashion and products and whatever you want.” I was desperate to find work and pay my bills, and then in August 2020, after many months of depressive unemployment, I landed a job where my work hours are very defined. So I knew that Monday to Friday, 10-6 PM, I’ll be busy - but there is going to be food on the table, and rent will get paid. This completely changed my photography. I often tell people that there is a photographer before the job and there is one after. When you go to my website and click on Archive, you will see the difference between what’s there vs what you saw on the homepage. But in the spirit of honesty, I have also been thinking about the fact that every photograph I have made, every video that I have edited, or every piece of music I have written is made either over the weekend or in the two hours after or before I start my day job. I joke that if someday someone comes up to me and says, “Here's an all-paid month off for you to just make things”, I would probably just die of happiness.

You also write this beautiful diary like substack. In a way photography has always been complemented with writing. How do you think of these two practices? 

Writing is very new to me. I think of it as holding a DSLR for the first time eight years ago - thanks to my cousin. After all these years I have learnt that the only way to get better at something is to put your head down and do it non stop. Writing is something new and exciting in my life and over the past one year I have tried to be as regular as I can be in making it a daily part of my life. I got fascinated by a writer’s approach when I read Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. I had seen the guy around the internet and was very surprised to see so many people deeply upset about his passing, making me curious to read him. The book was incredible, and I was upset that I got to know him after his death. In the book, we see the mad schedule of a chef like him, but what I noticed was that the first thing he did every morning was to light up a cigarette and sit down to write. This was incredibly fascinating, and I felt a spark: to explore this new art form. Over the years, I have leaned towards photographing freely and then coming home and trying to put deeper meaning into it, because that’s what I was told. So tiring. I realized I did not need to justify the beauty I notice and photograph in my day-to-day. I just needed to stay true to what I am doing. Maybe there is a deeper meaning in my photographs that I will write about someday, but for now, I am at a secure place with my photographs. I want to keep my head down and reach something similar with my writing.

I remember, earlier this year on X, we briefly touched upon how Vivian Maier is an inspiration for both of us. Could you share other artists, writers, photographers whose work moves you?

Photography is not natural to me. I would have laughed at the idea of being a photographer had you asked ten years ago. Not because I judge the profession, but the fact that for the longest time, I didn’t think I could practice it for life. When I discovered Vivian Maier through the documentary, I was moved to learn that she took all of those pictures without the intention of sharing. She just liked doing that. More than the photographs, I related to that. I am naturally inclined to shoot in squares, which was something she also did. That felt nice. 

I have not been too interested in photographers and their practices. If not all, most of my photographic inspiration comes from music. I listen to music all day and imagine something playing when I go out and take photos. Two of my biggest inspirations are Hiroshi Yoshimura and Ryuichi Sakamoto. 

Plus, these days I am deeply invested in writers who write about writing. Amitava Kumar’s The Blue Book was beautiful, because it had his journal entries along with writing advice. I cannot understand when words come in the way of the feeling, so I only read writers who write very simply. Also, because of your article, I picked up In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri and have been loving it - thanks for the rec!

I’ve forever been fascinated with the idea of a coffee table book. What do you think about those? Can you share the photo book, photographer or any work of art that challenged your perception of the art in some way? 

I love going through big books of photography whenever I get a chance. I don’t own any because they take a lot of space, but I have friends who lovingly collect them. Whenever I visit them, I try to spend some time reading one. Photobooks are great, and it's sad that they feel like a dying form. I made two small zines in my free time last year which I gave to my friends, enjoying every bit of that whole process. From writing to selecting the photos, to going to Nehru Place to get it printed, to sending them via post. Every step was just beautiful. I want to do more of it. 

When it comes to a book or work of art that challenged my perception or made me feel things, I remember my colleague Shiv, who is also a brilliant photographer and gave me a photo book that I hold very dear. It’s called “Something in Me'', and it's his diary, filled with polaroids that he took for a year alongside his thoughts on them. It's a 1/1 that he happily gave me because he loved my photographs. It's raw and it's so human. It's free from jargon. Exactly how I enjoy photography.

In 2023, I released a collaborative album with a dear friend of mine, Angad Berar. I met him in Himachal and was a huge fan of his music. We hit it off sometime in the middle of 2021 when I sent him a random email with a track I was working on. He was enthusiastic about working together. What followed was a two-year exchange of emails from Berlin to Bir, and in the end, we made “Existing Quietly”. Working with Angad was special to me because he made this album called “Amongst Them Shades of Green” in 2018, which to this date is a piece of work that brings tears to my eyes. There are seven sketches that are available for free on Bandcamp, of him sitting in Nedumangad across many seasons and recording his guitar on his iPod Touch. I remember listening to it in 2019, crying, and then meeting him at the end of the next year to make an album with him. You can understand how special that was for me. I did another listen to his album just a couple of days ago and felt exactly the same way. 

With photos, there aren’t many, but I remember seeing a photo series called “Family Love” by Darcy Padilla during the pandemic, when I was struggling to make sense of what I was photographing. Darcy photographed a family from 1993 to 2014. The work has nothing to do with the kind of photographs that I make - but it made me realize that patience is something that I must cultivate in my practice of photography. 

Somehow I feel you might have something to say about Achal Mishra’s Dhuin and Gamak Ghar. Do you?

Oh my goodness! Watch both of them. They’re so beautiful. I remember seeing the trailer for Gamak Ghar and feeling like I have not seen frames like this ever before in my (limited) experience of Indian cinema. I followed Achal’s Instagram immediately and discovered a sense of similarity in the way we see things. I also want to tell people to follow the cinematographer of both of these movies - Anand Bansal, who is equally brilliant in his work. There is a set of photographs that Achal has taken of a tree over many seasons in his hometown of Darbhanga, and this is the only set of prints that I’d want to buy. His work connects with me deeply, and I eagerly wait for his new set of photos or movie announcements.

As we come to the end of this conversation, I’d love for you to answer some of these:

1. A movie you saw recently and loved - Departures by Yojiro Takita

2. A book you read recently and would recommend - The Blue Book by Amitava Kumar, The Course of Love by Alain De Botton and Anything You Want by Derek Sivers. 

3. A writer, artist, really, any creative person whose work you admire and try to emulate - I want to make videos like this kid GAwxart. 

4. A substack you’d recommend - Yours! Also, The Prism by Gurwinder Bhogal and India Uncut by Amit Varma.

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Links:

https://www.debjitbanerjee.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBzkwd_hcxrtxzpchcZX_4g

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If you liked reading this, the next conversation substack will reach you sometime in the coming week!