Streetscapes. Cityscapes. These are all a crazy mix of possibilities. Does one capture them on the go or does one freeze them for posterity? Do we want motion blurs to punctuate the images or do we want the stories to be languorous and laid back?

And is it a matter of choice at all?

The problem with not being able to stand for a long time is that you land up looking at different kinds of exhibitions that may or may not be strictly speaking, Photographic.

I am just back from the Goethe Zentrum where THOMAS LÜTTGE had put together a collection of images from around the sub continent. Old and new parts of different cities…and what an exhibition of German simplicity it was.

What struck you was the constant conflict in the frames. Fog vs. Clarity. Old vs. New. In a series of images that explored the black & white spectrum to the fullest, Thomas proved that you do not need angles and distortions to give dynamism to a picture. Not a single image played with unnatural perspective and none attempted to disturb the perpendicular.

Disappointing perhaps was his quest for the contradiction…slightly clichéd it became at times…the images of tall skyscrapers with the hutments in the foreground for instance…the crumbling of the past making way for the creation of the future…this photographic medley has been a tad over done I think.

But all in all, a positive collection of photographs.

The imagery consolidated in my mind’s eye like a vignette of memories…flash frames floating in slow motion, in a suspended animation perhaps…and I remembered that the human eye is a lens that sees everything from a never-distorted perspective. So the residual captures of memory are also straight and clean.

The only difference was that he had deliberately chosen to strip the images of color. And allowed the black and white palette to take center stage. And he was not about to apologize for this. And then again, why should he?