Hey, Hot Shot! Entries: Kalpesh Lathigra
Vincent Brings Plenty, Star Village by Summer ‘07 contender Kalpesh Lathigra
“As you drive across the Midwest of the USA, you can only be in awe of the raw beauty of this vast endless landscape. If the land could speak, it would tell a sorrowful poem of people who once roamed free but we broken by the greed of another.” - Kalpesh Lathigra on “Lost in the Wilderness”
The above photo by today’s contender Kalpesh Lathigra is one in a series entitled, “Lost in the Wilderness”, which can be viewed in its entirety on Lathigra’s website. At first, I was startled by Lathigra’s submission, specifically put off by one image which appears to be of a dead coyote. (It’s probably not dead and I just have a weak stomach for misinterpretation.) I was fascinated, however, by his portraits of the Lakota Sioux Native American community, which he took on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
In his statement, Lathigra speaks of Pine Ridge as a place steeped in history and conflict that still affects the everyday lives of its inhabitants. According to Wikipedia, “Life in the Pine Ridge Reservation is very poor, probably easily comparable to the least developed countries of the Third World. Unemployment on the Reservation hovers around 85% and 97% live below the Federal poverty level.” Lathigra’s images of this community are captivating and full of empathy. There’s a beautiful close-up of an old woman with clips in her hair called “Evelyn, Red Shirt”, and this other untitled portrait I love of an old man in a blue cardigan, with hollow cheeks and a sunken face. These intimate portraits are spliced between images of stark, Midwestern landscapes and torn-apart houses.
Lathigra explains that the series was, “a quiet reflection of a community trying to survive in another America.” Of his work, he says, “Alienated and forgotten communities are the subjects of much of my photographic practice. My photographs are a document to give a voice to those who have none.”
Lathigra born in London, England in 1971, to Indian immigrants from east Africa. He studied photojournalism at the London College of Printing and, after leaving college, was awarded The Independent newspaper’s photography scholarship. He then spent 5 years shooting for national newspapers in the UK and was awarded the World Press Photo prize in the year 2000. In 2004/2005, Lathigra was awarded the W. Eugene Smith Fellowship and Churchill Fellowship for his “Brides of Krishna” project. The project was a part of the “Another Asia” exhibition at the Noorderlicht Photofestival.
“My interest in photography was a chance look at Cartier Bresson’s book in India whilst studying a Law degree,” he says, “which I subsequently quit to pursue photography.” And his influences? “The influences of Mitch Epstein, Mark Rothko, Robert Frank and Alec Soth prevail.”
Best of luck, Kalpesh Lathigra! (I love that name, isn’t it awesome??)
I love seeing new entries to Hey, Hot Shot! So, make me happy and enter now. Pretty please with a cherry on top. 
May 20th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
I’m bothered by the statement about Native Americans on Lathigra’s web site. Lathigra states: “Life on a modern Indian reservation is the result of all that came to pass, the poverty, squalor and acute social problems that resulted from the hopelessness that was endemic. . .what do we know of the Native American apart from the films and ‘Disney-fication’ of this unique of peoples. . .[sic]” Exactly — what does Lathigra know??? Lagritha visited one reservation and took some photographs — okay — but I wish he wouldn’t generalize about Native Americans in the way that he does in this statement. And I doubt very much they’d want to be described as hopeless and living in squalor. He writes like an outsider, someone who doesn’t really know all that much about the Sioux (much less Native Americans in general), and I don’t see intimacy in these photographs when I look at the eyes and expressions of the subjects. This is not to say I don’t like some of these images; I do, but I wish Lathigra would tell the truth about his process and his understanding — how long was he actually on the reservation? How well does he really know these people?