Seven-time World Press Photography winner to open show in India with Kolkata ‘noir’

Seamus Murphy, a renowned photographer with seven World Press Photography awards, is set to open an exhibition in India, showcasing his distinctive style of capturing Kolkata's hidden corners. Known as Kolkata noir, Murphy's photographs focus on the city's everyday moments and often overlooked subjects, deviating from the usual clichés found in news photography.

While Murphy has photographed numerous significant events around the world, including Gaza, Trujillo, Kabul, Sierra Leone, Ireland, London, and Beirut, his work in Kolkata stands out as his most defining. Inspired by a family holiday in the city six years ago, Murphy spent several months in Kolkata, capturing the city's disappearing Art Deco buildings and the rich history that lies beneath its surface.

The photographer aims to preserve these transient encounters and the city's architectural beauty, which he believes often go unnoticed in a politically saturated news environment.

Murphy's approach to photography differs from that of a photojournalist, as he doesn't seek to create images for news outlets or cater to the market's demands. Instead, he views his work as an act of archiving, preserving time and the city's unique essence. His images often showcase the quiet, everyday moments in Kolkata, such as an oversized flower on a garbage collector's bicycle, a boy mid-flight while attempting to kick a football, and a crow flying past two buildings, underscoring the city's noir atmosphere.

The upcoming exhibition, titled Life Is In Many Days, features 30 of Murphy's Kolkata photographs alongside 77 works from various locations worldwide, including Russia, North America, Ireland, and Afghanistan. Curated by Zelda Cheatle, the show highlights Murphy's ability to reveal the extraordinary in everyday life and his focus on transient encounters, gestures, color, architecture, light, and spatial relationships.

A note by author Amit Chaudhuri praises Murphy's calm formalism, noting how he taps into Calcutta's history of design and formalism, rediscovering and recreating its visual and popular arts in the textures of present-day Calcutta.