Photo Blog by Rajan Parrikar

I was born and raised in Goa. In 1988 I came to the USA for graduate study and obtained a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

My photographic interests lie in Landscape (both urban and wild), People, and Culture. Primary areas of focus are Goa and Iceland. The Death Valley region of California is also an area of interest.

I have photographed extensively in Goa, depicting the land and its sui generis ethos. I have documented the destruction of Goa's environment and its slide from an idyll into the chaotic dreck that matches today's India.

For over a decade I have traveled widely in Iceland, to most of its remote areas, in an ongoing in-depth exploration.

I am also a musician with a lifelong immersion in the musical traditions of India. I live in California and spend significant time in Goa and Iceland.

Declaration:
The images I create comport with my sensibilities. My photograph is not simply a documentation of “reality" but is imprinted with my own aesthetic choices.

As a general principle, I do not insert objects that were not already present in the frame at the time of capture. However, I allow myself the license to erase objects that violate my sense of balance and beauty. My artistic impulse is best expressed in the words of the great mathematician Hermann Weyl:

"My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I had to choose one or the other, I usually chose the beautiful."

[Photo taken in Rauðasandur, Iceland by Veena Parrikar]