Dayanita Singh's Blue Book

While I was starting out on my recent project in India, a friend of mine introduced me to the work of the Indian photographer Dayanita Singh. She studied at the ICP in the 1980s and later returned home to make work. Her early work, all in black and white, looked at the wealthier classes in India (from which she came), but she has been particularly productive in recent years, publishing several books with Gerhard Steidl, and exploring a wider range of concerns both conceptually and aesthetically.

Her series "Blue Book", which Steidl published as an book of tear-out postcards in 2009, investigates the industrial landscape in India through a series of exquisite images, many made at night. This work played an important part in the development of the series I was working on in India, in terms of its oblique approach to larger issues, and in its use of a consistent color palette.

Dayanita Singh, Blue Book #6

Dayanita Singh, Blue Book #7

Dayanita Singh, Blue Book #3

Dayanita Singh, Blue Book #5

Dayanita Singh, Blue Book #13

Samples of her work are scattered all over the web, but her gallery in Delhi has a good selection of her recent work here. Click on 'Past Exhibitions' on the left to see more complete series.