Azaan shah (b.1997) is a Photographer based in Kashmir .
“A good picture is born from a state of grace. Grace becomes manifest when one is freed from conventions, free as a child in his first discovery of reality. The game is then to organize the triangle,” – Sergio Larrain.
I want to keep my work as raw and ambiguous as I can so that it could be accessed without the aid of language. I don’t, therefore, like captions. I prefer people to look at my pictures and relate to their own stories. Henri-Cartier Bresson, Robert Frank, Sergio Larrain , Garry Winogrand, Vivian Maier , Diane Arbus and Josef Koudelka have inspired me from the very outset.
Music too has heavily influenced my work. The reason I am drawn to some of the Jazz musicians is that the street photography often shares its spontaneity and improvisatory nature with that of jazz. I am always excited to capture the moment as it is born, without putting a veneer of meaning from outside. I want to leave the moment pure for the posterity because the meaning of the word or a picture is so vast and layered that different audiences at different intervals of time enjoy a piece of art, a word or a picture according to the human condition prevalent at that particular time.
