hi everyone, i'm arjun menon.i'm a travel and fine arts photographer. i'd like to start off by sayingi've been asked to talk for 15 minutes. i've only prepared for 10. so basically, you'll be staring at mefor the final five minutes. i hope that's fine with you. i'm going to come backto my topic, which is art, why i believe art leaves a mark and why travel might just bethe best thing that ever happened to you. let's try and understand what art is.
is there a definition?can we ever define art? according to me, one word that describes art wellis the word 'expression'. art is a form of expression. it's a basic need for humansto express themselves, that's why i thinkart is a by-product of the same. let's look at a brief history of art. we all started off 40,000 years ago, when cavemen started paintingon their cave walls,
depicting their lives, stock, etc. we developed calligraphy. basically, we started writing things down,and history started existing. middle ages came in, where the westwas dominated by the church. art was restricted to thingsthat only happened in the bible, which is obviously not so good. a revolution was coming,which came in the form of renaissance. renaissance encouragedfree thought and will.
for the first time, we appreciated the human bodyand real-life places for what they were. then, we move on to eastern art. eastern art continued to developin its own unique way, taking cues from nature and everyday life. era of -isms: impressionism,cubism, surrealism, and so on. i'm not going to go too deep into it. then, modern art came in. it was heavily influencedby the world wars happening,
globalization,the advancement in technology. so, we got back to the drawing boardand started to experiment again. in this phase,[simple] forms of expression like blots of color, shapes, plattercould be considered art in this brave new world. let's see what makes art interesting. besides the factthat it's visual, it's imaginative, it's emotionally powerful, i think what makes art more interestingis the fact that there's a gap
between what the artist wants to express,and what you and i perceive, what the audience perceives. to have a deeper meaningof what perception is: perception is basically the process in which we collect raw datafrom all our sensory organs, take it to our brain, reshuffle things up, and make a model of the worldwe understand. we need to keep in mind that we often use this datato fuel our own preconceptions,
which is, you see what you want to see,you hear what you want to hear. a good example of this is memories. memories are interesting because they're just storieswe keep telling ourselves again and again. they're not a true depictionof what exactly happened. they're just what we understoodout of those events, and what made sense to usis what we keep as memories. no wonder art playedan important role in history. so i wanted to learn more about art,culture, and lifestyles,
and i realized i was sittingon a goldmine, living in india. and i started to travel. to give a brief background to my life, i was born in an army backgroundwhich involved a lot of traveling. i was in 13 schools in 12 years. so, when i completedmy degree in life sciences, i realized that i didn't want a lifewith a desk job or a laboratory job. i'm too hyperactive for that. so, i went up to my mom,i told her one day,
i want to see the world,and this isn't for me; i want to see the worldevery day of my life. what she said to me waseverything that i wanted to hear. she told me, "get out there,do all the things that you love to do. don't worry about anything else." so, i did exactly that.i did tons of internships, i assisted some of the bestphotographers in the world - which i was very lucky to do - i was doing nothingbut assisting photographers
for over three years, and i would rate this overany educational degree or achievement i could wish for. then, you come onto the vicious circleof time, money, and energy, and how people say, you'll never havetime, money, and energy at once; all three things at onceto do all the things that you love. when you're young,you have the time, you have the energy, but you don't have the money. when you're in your 30s, 40s,priorities are different;
you'll have the money,but you might not have the time. you'll have the energy as well.i mean, it doesn't matter. when you're in your 60s, 70s,you have all the time, you have the money, but you don't have the energyto do all the things. so, i decided earlier on that i didn't wantto fall into this vicious circle. i tried to develop a system for myselfwhich is self-driven, which means i doall the things that i love and create a systemin which i get to make a living out of it.
i started traveling a lot,mainly on solo travel. solo travel doesn't mean lonely travel. i think it means social travel. you actually put yourself in situationswhere you're more inclined to meet people, more inclined to beapproachable by others. so, i think this is some experiencethat you need to have, travel by yourself. i started working on this project which made sense to meas a travel photographer. i started six months of continuous travel,
i lived in 20 states,i saw a lot of beautiful places. and one of these islands in andaman. you have to be in these places to witness the epicness of where you are. there's a lot of travel which happened. so, an example of solo traveli would like to tell you about is, when i was living in key monastery - this is high up in the himalayas,and this was my first day there - where, basically, one of the monkscame up to me and asked me
if i'd like to join themfor a trek to gette, gette being the highestvillage in the world. now, how exciting is that? just understand this: the population of gette is just 30 people.there are six houses. so, i was like, i need to do this,whatever happens. as i said, i wasn't acclimatizedto the high altitude yet, so we started, and i started panting;i was breathless. the mission of the daywas to deliver this cow
which incidentally was pregnant,to the farmer back in gette. i looked at that cow for inspiration. it's pregnant and it's climbingall the way, so why can't i? i just said, if the cow can do it,i can do it too. (applause) so, we made it all the way.it's a 3 to 4 hour trek. this is what it looks like. you can compare it to any placesin switzerland, the alps, wherever you want,it'll stand up right among them.
this was a beautiful family. they're so hospitable, they literallydrag you inside their houses and feed youuntil you're full to your throat. you have to beg them, this is enough,i'm full, i'm done for the day. what happened was, yes,they gave me food. and i felt so connected to them, so humble because i was feelingas if i were at home away from home, which is beautiful. when we were on our way down,
the lighting was perfect,according to me, and i got this image. this totally becameone of my favorite photos, inspiring me to travel more as well. so, i went back to spiti in winterto witness how winters are. this is how it was. so, basically, i had to climb up thriceto get the exact same position i was in. it was all snow, so you can never be sure. i went back to my roomto find out it wasn't straight, so i went back thrice, basically.
we got this shot off. i shot a lot of time lapses as well. now, you have to realize that life's biggest adventuresare not going to come up to you begging you, at your doorstep;you have to be out there, you need to be putting yourselfin positions to realize this dream. an incident i'd like to share with you--it's kind of embarrassing, but whatever. the last time i went to tawangwhich is in arunachal pradesh, i went with my friends.
it was sub zero temperatures,it was snowing a lot. we were on our way to sangetser lakeand our car broke down. we got stuck in the snow. we were all disappointed,but we decided to do something different. so, there it goes. (video) it's around 12, and our car is stuck here. there's a frozen lake over here. and yeah, we can't proceed further.
it looks like a dream. but we'll try our best,we might have to call people. the situation is kind of intense. as you can see, there's no one around us.we might be in trouble. [somehow we got out,and we were disappointed ...] [then, we had this random idea.] [the idea was] [to jump into a frozen lake,without clothes.] we're going to test our guts tonight.
[the best part waswhen the local tawang resident says this!] [sorry, but that's all i can show.] whatever. yeah, let's move on. i started working on this projectcalled "change the perception". i wanted to create a better sense of what india really isand how we underestimate it so much. when you think of a dream vacation, how many of you actually think of india,traveling across india, exploring india? you usually think of south americaor a euro trip, which makes sense.
the project i was working on is exactlyto change the perception of you and i. this is again dankhar in full moon, one of the most picturesquevillages i have been to.
here goes the video i worked on. so, i'd like to conclude by saying,life is out there and it will pass you by. you have to open up your eyes. get out there and explore.
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