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U.S. portrait wizard plans book on Kerala

K. Santhosh

He is in Kerala to inaugurate an exhibition organised by the Butterfly Art Foundation

Herbert Ascherman Jr.

THRISSUR: The U.S. portrait wizard Herbert Ascherman Jr. plans to bring out a book containing his photographs of Kerala.

Mr. Ascherman, who is in Kerala to inaugurate an exhibition organised by the Butterfly Art Foundation, told The Hindu on Saturday that the book, titled Kerala: Heat of the Day, would focus on the common man's life.

Mr. Ascherman explains the rationale behind the title: "One singular force that affects the lives of the people here is heat. Visiting the tropics, having travelled 14,000 km, I am curious to see how life here is attuned to the heat and dust.''

The photographer has visited and photographed a few places in central Kerala, including Athirapally — yes, "braving the heat.'' "Till now, I have photographed elephants only in enclosures. For the first time, I photographed them as they moved amid people. An elephant raised its trunk and touched my head. It seemed as though the pachyderm was saying, `Good boy, good boy.' Working in India has been a good experience. It is nice to experience a culture that is thousands of years older than mine,'' Mr. Ascherman says.

Mr. Ascherman has photographed celebrities, including the former U.S. presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr., and the former U.S. secretary of State Henry Kissinger. "I enjoyed doing Kissinger's portrait. I have great respect for him. He was bright and influential,'' the photographer says. He particularly remembers the portrait session with actress Debrah Winger. "She looks very ordinary. Before the camera, however, she exudes an ineffable charm.''

Mr. Ascherman specialises in black-and-white photography. "Black-and-white works communicate emotions in a special manner.'' He likes working in large formats and his favourite camera is Hasselblad. "The quality of my photos has improved after I switched over to Hasselblad. I travel with an old Leica M4P.'' Mr. Ascherman is an expert in platinum printing. "Very few in the U.S. have specialised in platinum printing, patented in 1873 by Willard Willis. Pictorialist and Photo-Secession movements had embraced this method as the photographs were entirely hand-made, beautiful and had long life. While the ordinary black-and-white photograph fades in 100 years, the platinum prints would not even after 400 or 500 years.

An image made using platinum, or its sister metal, palladium, will vary in colour and intensity — from warm dark browns to cold neutral blacks. The image is printed using a negative the exact size of the print. The photographer applies a solution of platinum on the paper, places the negative directly on the dried coated paper and exposes the image to ultraviolet light.

Mr. Ascherman plans an exhibition of platinum prints, portraits of people of his hometown, Cleveland.

"The exhibition, to be held in a U.S. museum, will have photographs of people from different walks of life. I have photographed just about every interesting man and woman in Cleveland. But the most difficult persons to photograph have been my wife and mother. It is difficult to shoot people who are close to you,'' he says.

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