Old Delhi

In the years from 2015 to 2019, I have roamed the streets and small alleys, visiting the shops and tearooms of Old Delhi. My wife remarked “sooner or later this Old Delhi will be gone, it will not exist anymore, you should capture it photographically. You should document this unique place the way you witness it, very personally, with your usual enthusiasm.” Thus, in the course of a few years, these pictures emerged. Will this Old Delhi really disappear soon? Will it be torn down and replaced by modern blocks of flats and skyscrapers? Who knows? All my photographs were taken between autumn 2015 and February 2019. In my experience the common assumption that it is easy to take superb photographs in strange, thrilling and exciting environments is wrong. One certainly can take pictures in an exciting environment like Old Delhi, but most of them have already been seen a hundred times before and lack a personal touch. It is very difficult to find and photograph motifs in an environment like Old Delhi that show something “of the world behind the world”, beyond the superficial and already familiar aspects of our world. The photographs reveal some of my personality, my individual view of this world: all these pictures say something about me, as well as about this documentation of Old Delhi. I have continuously tried to capture what I feel about mysticism and magic in this chaos. A maddeningly exciting confusion, combined with the admirable serenity of the people there.