Photo Blog by Rajan Parrikar

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

My subject interests lie chiefly in Landscape, People, and most aspects of Culture. I don't do Weddings, Fashion, Sports, or Wildlife.

For well over a decade, Goa and Iceland together have served as my photographic lodestar. I have also been inspired by the Death Valley of California.

I have worked extensively in Goa, depicting the land and its sui generis ethos. My photo archives bear witness to the destruction of Goa's environment and its slide from an idyll into the chaotic dreck that matches today's India.

I have traveled widely in Iceland for over 12 years, to most of its remote areas, in an ongoing exploration.

I am also a musician with a lifelong immersion in the musical traditions of India.

Currently I live in Iceland and spend significant time in Goa.

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]