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Photo: S. Gopakumar

Up, close and personal Nisha Kutty says her muse is the human body, especially faces

One of a rare breed of woman photographers, Nisha’s eye-catching images in stunning colours have adorned the pages of fashion magazines such as Zink, Elle, Officiel, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Lucire and Femina.

And now the diva behind the camera is helping contestants of Channel’s ‘Get Gorgeous’ to look, well, gorgeous before and behind the camera.

“I show them the importance of the right make-up and colours and the importance of coordinating those colours. The right look, attitude, poise and good skin are imperative to be a model,” says Nisha who was in Kovalam for the shoot of the programme.

Not her first trip to Kerala or the city for Nisha has spent many a summer vacation in the city with her cousins. However, the New York-based photographer whose father, Narayanan Kutty, hails from Kerala, says with a broad smile that her cousins are all in the United States and so it has been quite some time since she visited the city. Moreover, the focus is different; it is work that brings her to the State.

“The contestants are raw amateurs and a team is putting them through their paces to turn them into top-class model,” she explains.

Not a tough job for some one who has worked with the best names in the business in Mumbai and with fine art photographer Beat Presser in Basel, Switzerland.

“Yes, but those were professional models. I conceptualise the colour and schematic and thematic layouts and work from there on. There is more money and people are more organised and professional than the scene in India,” explains the photographer who has a diploma in photography from the JJ School of Applied Art, Mumbai. Although her parents, both academicians in the United States, did not agree with her choice of a profession, she felt that the world of colours, light and shade was where she wanted to work.

She says she turned to photography when she found that her paintings did not meet her levels of expectations. Nisha found that she clicked best with photography. Then she began to paint with light. Her palette became the iridescent and muted colours of make-up and clothes. Her muse – the human body, especially faces.

Her evocative photographs, in colour or black and white, have a surrealistic feel with their Dali-like images that seamlessly blur imagination and reality. Crystal flies perch on eyes painted like flowers while fluorescent-coloured eye lids and cheeks mimic abstract images on a modernistic painting.

Not for Nisha the candid photographs of photojournalism or portraiture.

“Candid photo journalism does not appeal to me. I do not have anything to contribute to the photograph. It is all there in that moment. But fashion and beauty photography is very creative. Make-up is a key ingredient in my interpretation of glamour. I love the colours and textures and the inter-play that colours your work.”

She rates models like Yasmin Ponnappa, Manasi and Ujwala Raut very high on her list. However, she feels that Indian models lack the ambition that drives international models to the top of the ladder.

“More than figure, looks and talent it is the ambition to be the best that takes one places,” says Nisha. And with Nisha’s exposure to the best of international talent and idea, she sure is someone who is focussed on her ambition to be the best in the world.

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