Pune: Images shot by French documentary photographer Frédéric Noy with a smartphone camera over three years in India are on display at Ravi Paranjpe Studio in Model Colony from April 17-19. Titled An Unselfed Visual Journal, the exhibition has been organised by Alliance Française de Pune.Noy is a veteran of long-form, slow visual storytelling and has previously chronicled places across Africa and Central Asia. Since 2022, he captured India in photos with the eye of a fieldworker and the patience of a flâneur.He said, “I use my phone like a logbook or a scouting tool. The most practical camera is the one you always have with you to quickly take a snap. In India, the smartphone becomes almost invisible. It doesn’t threaten people or interrupt a moment. It allows you to be part of the world rather than an observer standing outside it.”However, the point is not gadgetry, but assimilation. Noy rejects the self-regarding habits of tourist photography and the philosophy runs through the exhibition.A photograph of caterers having a conversation in Delhi, two-wheeler riders across India, sacred flames on the ghats of Varanasi and so on tell the story of his time in India. Some photographs were spur-of-the-moment shots, while he had to wait for the right elements in the frame for others.“Photography is like fishing — you throw your line and wait. In photography, you find a frame and stay,” said Noy.One of the most revealing photographs is also the only direct portrait in the exhibition. It is of a bookseller in Ahmedabad. “I was passing by when I noticed a shop filled with old books stacked everywhere. I went in and started speaking with the owner. I don’t usually take portraits, so I asked him to look away to keep it candid. When I reviewed the images later, the one where he looks straight into the camera stayed with me. It has all the heart,” he said.In another image, a man lies fast asleep, elbows out, palms tucked beneath his head, legs loosely crossed — embodying what Noy sees as serenity. “I am a westerner. It struck me to see him sleeping peacefully in an organised chaos. No French man would be comfortable enough to fall asleep like this,” he said.“It has been uncomfortable to be in India at times, but it pushes me to explore more. There is so much here. Each state and city feels different, yet somehow the same. It’s like a tidal wave coming over me. It can be overwhelming, but I want to understand it properly. Therefore, I take it in parts, slowly — to process and absorb,” he said.Noy’s photographs capture India in its layered dualities, where modern housing societies sit alongside temple architecture and daily hustle coexists with an enduring human spirit.
