India is a country where Melanie Dornier has a special attachment, which she still finds difficult to describe after almost two years of life there. She lived in India during 2008 and 2009 before moving to China to carry on her work on documentary photography. Speaking about India, Melanie found that a lot of people would mention only poverty and religion, an outdated Western preconception of the country. When returning to the country, Melanie wanted to express something else, a sense of movement in Indian day-to-day life. This angle expresses one of her feelings about the country: the perpetual movement. In India she found that staying for hours on one spot was not boring, because so much happens.
Motion is a wide subject that Melanie Dornier decided to treat with specific effects. To express the movement of people in her pictures, she chose techniques such as panning and slow shutter speeds. The resulting blur created a special halo in many of the pictures.
Between art and documentary the project was done during her last trip in India in June 2011. The first stop was Old Dehli before heading to Calcutta (Kolkata, West Bengal): the City of Chaos and Human Perdition on the banks of the unpredictable Hoogly River, famous for its decrepit colonial buildings. On her way back to Delhi, she stopped at Orrcha (Maya Pradesh), an old religious city in the middle of luxuriant countryside. The entire trip happened at the beginning of the Monsoon season; in some of pictures you can feel the heat and in some others you perceive the strength of the first rains.
Melanie paid particular attention to reflect the ambiance of daily life on the streets. She focused on graphic compositions and colour mixes. The activities recorded are far from being exhaustive but you will discover: kids playing, markets, workers, hairdressers and rickshaws. India's motion has many catchy compositions recording day to day life. Her effort on style and graphics resulted in Melanie being awarded the title of 'emerging photographer' for her work at the Salon de la Photo 2011.
Photographer Melanie Dornier is currently based in Suzhou, China and can be contacted direct regarding licensing of her images of for potential photographic assignments in Asia.
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