BOOK REVIEW
‘With the Dawn’, by
Nihal Fernando and Herbert Keuneman, published by Studio Times Ltd., reviewed
by Malinda Seneviratne.
There are countless melodies that can be composed with the 12
pitches of the Chromatic scale. There
are more than 12 words in the English dictionary and this alone gives sense of
dimension pertaining to possible word configuration. One might say that we have enough and more
tools to describe the world to ourselves and one another. There are times however when we all feel
poor, not for lack of word but perhaps for its suffusion. We cannot pick the correct words to describe
to perfection, dimension and detail all.
Then we go silent.
When a photographer has travelled a territory more
extensively than an archaeologist or surveyor it is clear that he or she can
make countless albums for there are innumerable ways to organize material. It is hard to think of anyone who has
traveled the length and breadth of this island as much as Nihal Fernando has
done. Neville Weeraratne in an essay
titled ‘Nihal Fernando and Herbert Keuneman: a tale of two kindred souls’ says
that the former ‘has seen, heard, experienced and above all understood the
land, its people and their life’. It
holds for the latter too, going by that same essay and by the authoritative
travel guide ‘The Handbook for the Ceylon Traveller’ which carries the
signature of his life, vision, knowledge and the love he shared with Fernando
for this country. Weeraratne describes him this way: ‘His
lifelong residence led to a passionate love for the island. There is (nor was) anyone with his
encyclopedic knowledge of the country in whatever the detail and in whichever
the discipline.’
Weeraratne’s piece is found towards the end of an album of
photographs which is also an essay and a journey, ‘With the dawn’ published by
Studio Times. From dawn to dusk is a
long time. For people like Fernando and
Keuneman it’s a set of hours that can theoretically make for countless albums
on countless subjects. This collection
is based on the Studio Times exhibition called ‘Wild Life ’73’’ held almost
forty years ago at the Lionel Wendt Art Gallery, Colombo. The photographs displayed were picked by
Keuneman just two weeks prior to exhibition date. That process has been described beautifully
thus:
‘Fernando and Keuneman
flung open the doors of the studio (Studio Times, that is, located then in the
Times Building, Colombo Fort), letting the unsullied air of a quiet morning
find its way into the dark corners, as they laid out the photographs on the
floor. Beggars who lived in the foyer of
the building, occasionally peered in to look at the whirling images of deer and
elephants, monkeys and crocodiles, jungle trees and jungle pools, birds and
more birds in flight. Herbert Keuneman
walked among these black-and-white prints, picking up one, peering at the next,
tossing photographs here, there, everywhere.
He cast a few aside, sorte4d others, grouped some and started writing
the story of a day in the jungle…with the dawn…the birds…awake…and take off…and
so it went on until the last bird flew home.’
This was long before digital cameras and ‘photoshop’ those
advances that turned point-click amateurs into art photographers if they knew
how to photo-edit or could obtain the services of a photo-editor. We can flip through the pages and be
mesmerized by the images. It would take
a traveler however to look at each photograph and imagine the work involved. Nihal Fernando is well known for his
patience. He did not (and admittedly
could not) depend on the insurance of post-click technology to work out the
glitches that human frailty (of mind, eye and finger) spawns.
It is a black and white collection. For this reason the photographer obviously
had to work within narrower margins of error.
Color blinds at times and even makes for a lot of fudging. Perhaps this is why even in today’s digitized
world of fascination with color palettes the black and white photographer is
still held in awe.
We cannot tell if the collection was gathered,
photographically, over a single day. But
this was a different age of photography and a different society working towards
different objectives at a different pace and in less glittered economy. Nihal Fernando was inspired by love. So too, Herbert Keuneman. Such people don’t rush. They take their time. It is evident in the collection, both in
image and in descriptive line.
They take us from moment to moment, hour to hour, dawn to
dusk as though leading us by hand, drawing attention to all that the untrained
and less-used-to-loving eye would miss.
Keuneman’s economy of words is ideal complement to Fernando’s
photographic poetry. He says only what
is necessary and thereby teaching that silence is an excellent travel companion
and even travel guide. There is silence,
silently captured and described in whisper.
There is music here too, for Fernando makes us hear the ripple of water,
the movement of wind, the call of bird, flapping of wings and thereby teaches
us the language of the civilized, our ancestors who had eyes and did not babble
incessantly just because they had mouths and tongues.
‘With the Dawn’ ends ‘when the last bird flies home’. It is a limited edition of just 1000
copies. A different generation of
photographers might think that armed with technology they could as much or
better with a fraction of the effort.
They would be wrong. Technology
does not have a ‘love-function’. It is
not obtained by point-and-click on a computer screen or inserted as device in a
sophisticated camera. It comes with
walking. It comes with deep
reflection. It comes in conversations
with hundreds and hundreds of ordinary people.
It comes with the dawn and takes flight in the wings of the last bird
flying home.
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