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Jaipur jeweller’s emerald visions

A FRESH FEEL: A gem from K.K. Agarwal’s panoramic collection of photographs that capture the verdant southern coast of India. They are on show at an exhibition in Jaipur right now.

JAIPUR: Jaipur jeweller K.K. Agarwal is a quintessential nature-lover who has named his son after the tree (“Taru”) and daughter after its branch (“Shakha”). Mr. Agarwal, his wife Sushma and Taru recently went to the country’s southern coast travelling 9,015 km by car (Hyundai Accent).

A versatile personality with two entries in the Limca Book of World Records for gardening and many awards in photography, the jeweller has brought back emerald scenes of paddy fields, tea gardens and verdant countryside to dry Rajasthan.

The photographs are now on show at an unusual exhibition titled “Panoramas” at KK Square here. The pictures — which are both focused and panoramic — were created by exposing multiple images of a single scene or subject, at times encompassing 360 degrees.

Different shots were stitched together by computer software to create a single scene.

The Agarwals were on a gold rush to complete the southern haul in 26 days and they confess they can’t now recall the place names and even the States on the coast from where they got these visual treasures! But then it perhaps does not matter as the hills and the dales are there etched for eternity even if they remain a visual treat — unidentified.

Part of the extra efforts on the photographs could also be attributed to the printing technology adopted as, instead of the conventional lab-processed silver-halide photo prints, pigment inks were used to print them on an inkjet printer.

The experimentation does not end there.

The paper used to print the images is exhibition fibre paper (Museo Silver Rag) which is 100 per cent cotton-based.

As for the equipment, Mr. Agarwal used three cameras — a Mamiya 645, a Nikon 100 and a Nikon D2X.

The scanning of slides was done using a Super Coolscan 9000 ED. The photographs were taken by a hand-held camera.

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