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He was grounded and not allowed to touch the camera for some time. But the young boy's passion for the image meant he started helping out at his father's Nilkamal Studio in Bhaktapur.
And it was clear from very early on that Kishor was an artist, a photographer who saw beyond the two dimensions of celluloid. Living in the ancient city and his interest in the architecture and life of his people shaped his mind's eye. And when digital photography came along Kishor took to the new technology and used its flexibility to full artistic advantage.
Kishor Kayastha's famous panoramas are on display at the Indigo Art Galley for a month beginning this week and some of them are being sold as limited edition 2008 calendars. This is the second time Indigo is displaying his photographs after a successful exhibition in 2005 ('The bromide canvas', #225,).
"I wanted to make them exclusive and also to give the photograph a time element," says Kishor, explaining why he chose the digitally-printed calendar format.
Kishor's panoramas are multiple exposures of urban vistas that are digitally pasted together and he has no problems with the technique. "If it is possible to do digitally, why should any purist have any problems with it?" he asks.
Indeed, seeing the end result of the 360 degrees of bahal or the Himalayan horizon as seen from Nagarkot, even the skeptic will be impressed. The Himalayan sky is already a wide expanse so the panorama of horizon doesn't look as striking as the wide angle of Bhaktapur's alleyways.
"I was always struck by how you could take the narrow world of the streets and the bahals and widen them into cinemascope," explains Kishor. "The collective and the communal can then be spliced into individual elements and everyone in the photograph then looks like they exist in a separate universe while being a part of a larger whole."
One picture of golden heaps of harvested rice being dried in the sun in a chok in Bhakatapur can be broken down into many separate elements and is sure to be the most popular photograph in the exhibition.
Besides his wide-format strip panoramas, Kishor explores other motifs. His most dramatic recent works concern monsoon Kathmandu as seen through the wet windscreens of vehicles in the streets. The everyday image of shimmering wet lights are turned into moving colour stills that evoke a drippy and watery world.
Kishor has also been taking close-ups of the walls of homes and temples in Bhaktapur, and by going close enough to bring out the textures and colours, the effect is impressionistic. One can't wait to see where Kishor's eyes will take him next, and wherever they go the results are bound to be mesmerising.
"Larger than Life--Panoramic Photos by Kishor Kayastha"
Sale of the 2008 Panoramic Calendar
5 December, 2007- 15 January 2008
Daily 8 am to 6 pm
Indigo Art Gallery, Naxal, 441-3580
