Photographers Jaf Jafri and Olya Milentis’s ongoing exhibition aims to portray the inherent beauty of every human being. They explain to S Mallik why they chose to work with everyday women
They say that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and innumerous people artists and photographers have proved it in the past. Every person on the planet has an inherent beauty that perhaps only few can see and capture at the same time. There is something serenely beautiful about a woman letting her guards down and laughing her heart out or perhaps looking deep into the lens of the camera capturing just moment of her being.
It is this silent beauty of women that fashion and celebrity photographers Jaf Jafri and and Olya Milentis have been trying to capture for the last four months. And if you are curious to see what they look like, they are on exhibit at the Russian Centre of Science and Culture. It is titled Every one is Beautiful, and trust us, they are breathtaking.
Milentis told us that 50 per cent of the photographs were taken in India. “The aim of this exhibition is to show that everyone is beautiful. The women in the photographs are the ones we come across everyday. “They are women who are all around us,” she explained.
Jafri added, “If you look at them closely, every picture will tell you about their emotions and their own individual personalities. As a photographer when I find somebody a normal person I sit with them, talk with them and come to understand their personality (their way of viewing life) and accordingly put her in that perspective. Then I shoot them so that it shows the reality.”
Both Jafri and Milentis have captured them in various moods, colours and some even in set backdrop. Milentis pointed out that they have chosen the colours accordingly. “They do not distract from the subject,” she said.
The collection is a mix of black and white and colour and they told us that the composition of every photo depended on the mood of the woman in it. We particularly liked one pictures —both non colour — which are placed one after the other. One depicted a woman, standing in the middle of a sidewalk, possibly in Russia, reading a newspaper. She looked pretty in a polka dotted dress, hat and heels. When asked about the Indo-Russian collaboration, Jafri said that they have been working together for nine years. “This project is fairly new. We spoke to the Embassy, who has always been in support of our work, and began working on it four months ago,” he wrapped up.