Reality & Imagination:

        A Mirror of Life 

                         "Beaches are borders- endings and beginnings-

                    and for those suspended between homes, they

                          are perhaps the only places where we feel like

                                                 ourselves."       -Aurvi Sharma

Have always found great comfort in or by the ocean.

The ocean has become the anchor for my series, Reality & Imagination.

This ongoing series is a body of work of over 100 images that were edited from hundreds of images shot over a period of 10 years. 

The images are basically as they are in the instant shot.   

I photograph the tide as visual metaphor to explore the dynamic interaction which takes place between the cultures when one lives permanently in a foreign land. 

The cultures automatically interact with each other in a motion that is instantly fluid and turbulent, just as the sand and tide. It's a constant movement in unison where each always retains its distinctive characteristics. This creates a duality that is always present. 

The current climate towards immigrants in the US and the present migrant situation in Europe shows that the turbulent interaction between the duality created by the mix of the two cultures does not only manifest itself within the foreign individual but also within that foreign land.

Each of the sections of ‘Reality & Imagination’ explores this cultural duality. The section ‘Silhouette & Shadow’ and 'Silhouette & Shadow Too' I give an actual shape to the two cultures as silhouette & shadow, which are both entities that cannot exist without the presence of another.  Just as the sand and the tide, a silhouette & or a shadow constantly moves in unison with the object the projected light uses to create it. In that instance, both the object and the shadow always retain each their individual characteristics.

'Silhouette & Shadow Too' addresses the phase where immigrants are visible to the dominant society only in limited capacity when needed, and the fact that the potential of enriching the society at large is short circuited.

Personally,  the series has permitted me to readily welcome what's good from both (all cultures in fact) and to let go from each what does not serve me as a human being. It has facilitated me to see at times what's not readily seen as well as to be at times more present in life. It has given me the understanding that at every point I have the opportunity to act by choosing from within the structures of one of the two cultures what would serve best at that moment.                                                                                                                      

The constant intermingling of that duality is ever present.