Bharat Patel

My interest in photography goes back to my early teens and it gradually turned into a passion; at first embracing its many genres but now concentrating on contemporary photography.  For me “everything is waiting to be photographed and to be remembered, it is how you photograph it that counts”.

An underlying influence in my photography is my upbringing in the British colonies and my subsequent exposure to multitudes of cultures and social structures, experiencing the blurred boundaries between racism and caste. My work tends to bounce between two views: that of the colonisers and that of the colonised. Mixed with this is my formal education as an Electronics Engineer, which exposed me to the world of sub-atomic matter where order and hierarchy exist amongst the chaos, just like my experiences in real life. I relate laws of the natural world to the cultural, political, economic, and social structures that are themselves all geared toward subordinating others.

I want my images to seesaw between the beautiful and the murky. Through the penetrating stares of my sitters, I want the images to give voice to the underprivileged and those who live on the margins of societies around the world. I am always looking to preserve my work, and hence the history, so as to retain the importance of what is present and that which may inform the future. I call this “photography for a purpose”.

http://www.bharatpatelphotography.co.uk