In conversation with Sunhil Sippy
- Uncommon Studio
- Jun 23
- 13 min read
Featured in Issue 04 - Before Colour
Interview by Soham Joshi
Editors - Priyanka Patel , Hunny Awatramani and Brij Trivedi
Mumbai and India, in general, are vibrant and colourful places. What inspired you to use black and white for Opium of Time? How did you convey emotions and moods without relying on colour?
I think I have always had a difficult time understanding the city in colour, or perhaps I should say I see it very differently in both black and white and in colour. With the use of monochrome, I wanted to remind myself of a city that was disappearing, and in fact the original title of the book was “a disappearing city”; so there was no question that I was using monochrome to create a “romantic” portrait, but it was a subconscious choice. It was instinctive. I wanted to hold on to something, and monochrome I suspect helped me to do that. In a more practical sense, if I am to reflect on how I convey the emotions and moods that I feel without relying on colour, this is the simplest way to put it - when you drain the colour from the frame, especially if the frame is busy, you are left with a purer emotion, a simpler one even perhaps. Colour, especially if not understood well can bring unwanted distractions, and that is why many people do suggest that colour on the street is harder than monochrome, though that is a debatable question. I will however say this - Mumbai, broadly speaking, is chaotic, and while I think there are some very fine colour photographers who are able to embrace that chaos and create evocative and very well balanced frames, I, as yet, am not one of them.
All that said, you will notice that I have used colour very sparingly in the book’s visual narrative, but those images are far quieter and the colour tones are muted, possibly thanks to the use of analog. In some ways you might say that the form determined the content, as there's such a stark difference in the styles. For the analog colour I kept away from the busy streets and worked more meditatively making urban landscapes on the fringes of the city.
What inspired you to create Opium of Time? How does a photographer find and maintain a narrative and theme in their work?
Perhaps what inspired me to make a book was the fact that I woke up one day realising that I had been capturing images around the city for close to 10 years. And 10 years seemed like a nice round number with which to close off a chapter of my life that had developed into “explorations”. It’s important to note that I didn’t photograph with the intent of making a book. It was walking in order to heal from a terrible injury, and that was my predominant preoccupation. The camera became my companion on these long aimless walks, and it was only several years into this “preoccupation” that I realised a body of work was emerging.
In 2020 when lockdown struck us all, as for many artists, it was a period to really reflect on the work - a time to conduct an in depth, arduous examination of the archive. I must have spent a year doing this while also photographing sporadically. Over that period I tried to thread a narrative by structuring the images into “sections” - The Street - The Monsoon - The Industrial City - The Night - The Entertainment - these were the themes into which I segregated the images, and once I had built these categories, I then had to create a visual flow, image by image.
I always wanted an element of writing to be part of the book but I recognised at a very early stage that the writing had to be both sparse, yet pointed.
Writing is a tricky affair when it comes to photo books and I think when it came to my text which appears in the form of diary entries, I chiselled away at it month after month, removing a word here, adding two there, almost like a sculptor. But I had a clear intention which was to inspire an emotion that would be both compelling and evocative. It’s taken me a while to reflect on whether I succeeded or failed, but on the whole I would say that it worked very well for me, and when asked what I might change if the book went into a reprint, it certainly is not the text!
The element of poetry entered the book as an additional layer, and if my memory serves me correctly, it may have even come before I had decided on the diary entries. I had worked with Ankur Tewari for many years in a more commercial environment as a director. We had a very comfortable tuning, and I think his generous contribution along with Kausar Munir’s elegant translation added a sense of both beauty and romance which supported the narrative I was trying to build.
How did your early years and education shape your creative vision and approach to photography and filmmaking? Can you share specific examples of how your literary background has influenced your work, especially in black-and-white photography and visual storytelling?
I grew up in Suburban London in a very idyllic landscape, almost utopian, perhaps. Today it's hard for me to even believe that I was surrounded by so much beauty in those early years. It often feels like a different lifetime. It was a classical beauty perhaps, because my perception and understanding of beauty changed after I moved to Mumbai. I think it’s also important to say that despite its beauty, I never felt at home in London, and as long as I was in Mumbai life seemed to make more sense.
That said it took many years and many footsteps to really see and feel this new beauty that I was surrounded by. For several years I remained oblivious to my surroundings, as many of us living day to day in the city are. But it was probably around 2008 when I made a conscious effort to understand my context - in the book I use the phrase “to understand where I am”.
I studied English Literature, though I sometimes regret not studying the visual arts - primarily art history, but I think I have made up for that by collecting a vast number of photo and art books over the years. However I cannot overstate the importance of literary texts and how even a simple sentence written beautifully by a great novelist can inspire an entire body of photographic work. Of course the theme or structure of a book can also be an inspiration, and I think Sebald's The Rings of Saturn played a big role in how I approached Opium, albeit retrospectively. Sebald kind of goes on a circuitous journey on his walks in the Suffolk countryside, and as an outsider (he was German) he never really penetrates the world he's exploring. I felt, and still feel that way in Mumbai, and Opium sort of reveals that. I am on the outside looking in, going around in repetitive circles - and I realise that I can never truly inhabit the stories that unfold in my narrative. Nor is there a need to really - I learnt to embrace the fact that I am an outsider.
In my career as a commercials director I was trained to deliver clear messages with the utmost brevity and always in colour (which also may be one of the reasons I began my photographic journey in monochrome - it was a resistance to what I had been forced to do for so many years).
I slowly discovered that this was a huge impediment to my growth as a visual artist. I began to understand that I needed only a very broad sense of intent, and that “not knowing” was conceptually acceptable, and even beneficial - though I would make a big distinction between “ignorance” and “not knowing”. I have never been ignorant or insensitive to the environment I'm working in - but while being lost or beset with endless confusion might seem difficult to endure at times, it's spectacularly important. In short, certainty can be your greatest enemy, and doubt your finest friend.
Revelations like this did appear over time, and above all things as I befriended the work, both the images and the journey became a way for me to connect with myself. I understood about a year and half after the book was published, that this authentic connection with myself, this honesty, was carrying across to the audience.
This might also have been, I've been told, because the images asked more questions than they answered, and I think that always helps to engage an audience more than work that is more literal. It’s not that I don’t want anything to be too clean or clear, it's just that I think I am always chasing a feeling. A feeling that an image must evoke. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it's my entire life experience that I bring to the moment when I choose to press the shutter.
You’ve worked with various analog formats such as 35mm, 120, and 4x5. How do you decide which format to use for a project, and what unique qualities does each format bring to your work?
In the world of analog, each format has a very unique quality and over a 10 year period, I seem to have settled on a sweet spot with Medium Format 120 - 6” x 6” - the beautiful square format of the Hasselblad.
But how do I decide which format to use for a project? I don’t. I shoot for that format for an extended period of time and only retrospectively can I see if patterns emerge and if the format is serving the potential narrative. For example, with my work on the Eastern Seaboard, the current structure has a very contrasting mix of colour analog squares juxtaposed with digital monochrome landscapes. The digital monochrome helps me to maintain a reportage quality that tends to orient itself around people and stolen moments, but with the analog 120, it’s more about moods and textures. You might say that light and tone play a very big part in my colour work, but it’s the situation that drives the monochrome.
I did work extensively on 35mm but eventually found that it did not offer anything particularly special. And while working in 4x5 is magical, for some reason I never quite settled with the system. It’s something I feel quite sad about sometimes because using it is the ultimate act of slowing down. But truthfully I’m grateful that I fell in love with the Hasselblad and that the work I make on it has found its place in my photographic journey.
We admire your images from the racecourse and your extensive work around Mumbai's Eastern Freeway. Could you tell us more about your upcoming and ongoing projects?
The work that is currently on the anvil and which is in the design stage is a book called Race Day. It is a portrait of Mumbai’s iconic Racecourse made over an 8-10 year period. While I had been randomly photographing the environment from around 2013, my practice became a little more formal in 2015 after meeting and gaining the support and encouragement of Subaag Singh and Shujaat Hussain, two of racing's most senior trainers. Through them I gained incredible access to the inner workings of racing - the jockey room, the stables, the bathing areas, and I was even able to photograph from the jeep that travels alongside the horses during the race.
But my work on the racing aspect of the space was patchy and sporadic over the years; 2015 and 2016 were very active but it wasn't till 2023 and 2024 that I went back into these very “closed off” areas. Through the in-between years I would typically focus on the public - the gamblers - and I observed a sort of flip-side of the universe - since we tend to perceive racing as a sort of time-pass distraction of the elite. Nothing could really be further from the truth and I hope the work eventually reveals the many, many shades of the culture - the passion that exists all around - the trainers, the jockeys, the stable hands, the horse owners, the gamblers - it's a very serious world that operates on so many levels, notwithstanding the immense politics that surrounds the geographical space itself.
Living nearby was helpful and on evening and early morning walks, I would record the world outside of racing - how the public space interacts with that world. So as this volume comes together, it does have several layers that are very challenging to combine into a focused narrative - but I do enjoy challenges like this. And I hope at the end of the day we have a book that marries all the worlds together sensibly.
The work on the Eastern Seaboard continues in its own amorphous way and while I do see it as a book, I don’t feel I have finished these explorations. But here I think it's important to say that while I was working in my own arbitrary way for so many years, it was only upon reading Devika Rege’s seminal work Quarterlife which is set in the city but which often refers to the Eastern Seaboard particularly Deonar, that I was inspired to begin the journey of assembling the work. As of now I’m still making work, and suspect I will be for a little while longer.
What is currently inspiring you, and are there any contemporary photographers who influence your work?
I am really inspired at the moment by a rather interesting combination of writings by Robert Adams and Rainer Maria Rilke - the former a photographer and the latter a philosopher, though you might argue that Adams is as philosophical in his writings on photography as Rilke is! I think Adams provides a sense of reassurance, allowing me to embrace my lack of clarity and develop a sense of comfort with my innate confusion. Rilke’s philosophy is centred around patience, and has helped me to allow my narratives to gently evolve without any pressure.
There is also the cinema of the 1970s and 80s that has surreptitiously crept into my world and over which I am obsessing. I believe that the style and approach to filmmaking in the pre-digital age was more nuanced with the voices of individual filmmakers bursting through the screen with unquestionable authenticity. Perhaps it's the optimistic belief that the role of the auteur was stronger in that period, which might simply be because it was more difficult to get work made.
You can transfer that same observation to the world of photography - there were clearly less photographers around and the individual voices more distinct. All that said, one of the major distinctions between the two worlds is the concept of the deadline - the photographers would tend to work open-ended and with a great deal of freedom, while filmmakers were tethered to financiers or studios and had to work fast and under serious pressure - something I have understood well from my own experience.
This understanding, shaped over time, has helped me to believe in my own voice as a contemporary photographer. I've also discovered that it’s vital that I not be influenced by contemporary voices as strong as they might be, though it is a joy to admire the work. It’s critical for me to nourish my own spirit in whichever way I can - reading, travel, observation, conversation, study - whatever.
This is so that I can be influenced and guided by my own spirit and inner voice. I have to tune into it, almost as though it were a radio station - but quite often I get horrible static and I have to keep on until it dissipates, so that I can both hear and listen.
In today’s world, what do you think it takes to be a good photographer?
Patience.
It is hard to elaborate on this, but living one’s most authentic life and having patience with one’s own self is critical. I have heard it said that making a photograph is easy but creating an enduring body of work is akin to pushing a boulder up a mountain. I truly believe this. And I believe in what John Gossage often refers to as “the long game” - after all his seminal work The Pond was photographed over an extended period through the 1970’s and 80’s - but what is special is how he observed a single space so patiently, creating such a powerful and evocative portrait that raised so many questions about man and his relationship with nature.
So to tail off I shall leave you with this - there is really one primary thing required to be a good photographer, and that is to go out and photograph - to not think too much, and to make as much work as one can. And to be mindful of the fact that the stories one wishes to tell will always reveal themselves over time.
About our Guest Judge
Sunhil Sippy was born and raised in London. He attended photography school at the Brooks Institute in California, prior to attending Georgetown University, where he earned a degree in English Literature in 1994, winning the Wagner Medal creative writing upon graduation. He returned to London, working in a bookstore on weekends while writing and photographing during the week. He moved to Bombay in 1995 to pursue a career in film and advertising.
In 1999, at the age of 28, he made his first feature film, Snip! which won the National Award for Best Editing in 2001. The film caught the attention of the advertising industry and he then entered the world of commercials, directing advertising films, working across categories, for almost 25 years. In 2012 an accident led him to losing the heel of his left foot; ironically it turned into his greatest gift as his healing involved walking and the walking precipitated his journey into street photography.
In 2022 he published his first monograph, The Opium Of Time (Pictor) which he self distributed, selling over a 1,000 copies in less than 2 years. Mumbai has been an integral character in Sunhil’s personal photographic journey, and he has been working on two new projects, Race Day and Eastward. However, his photographic expeditions take him around the world.
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He has recently taken up interesting commissioned assignments, working as personal archivist to Sabyasachi Mukherjee, collaborating with the historical city-chronicler, Miss Bombaywallah, and occasionally supporting the Film Heritage Foundation with their photographic archive.
His philanthropic work began in 2014, where he became a trustee of the Savitri Waney Charitable Trust, creating an award winning short film incurable blindness and documenting palliative care in rural India. He has also supported NGOs like Akanksha, Teach for India, The Circle, and The Jai Vakeel Foundation.
Sunhil lives in Mumbai, balancing his roles as a director, photographer, and flâneur.
About our Interviewer
Born in 2000, Soham Joshi is an Indian visual artist working between India and the UK. Their practice explores themes of urbanity and identity through alternative photographic techniques, drawing from traditional darkroom processes. Whether focusing on the human form or urban architecture, their work celebrates its subjects while investigating the interplay between people, materials, and space.
On the commercial front, their fashion and fine art photography has appeared in NAKID Magazine, Curator Magazine, and Homegrown Voices. Since 2018, they have toured as a music photographer, with work published in Rolling Stone India, Indian Music Diaries, and Rock Street Journal. Their artistic approach blends photography with mixed-media, navigating the intersections of various visual disciplines.
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