Over ten years, Sunhil Sippy has captured life on the streets of a city that he never believed would evolve and change as much as it has. The Opium of Time is Sunhil Sippy’s meditative exploration of life on the streets of Mumbai. Over one decade and a million steps, Sunhil took photographs of a city he had known for years, but never quite understood. That is, until a brutal injury forced him away from potentially ever walking those streets again. It was also the injury which persuaded him to return to street photography, and this time round his explorations were deeper and more intense.
The book is a collection of over 100 monochrome analog landscapes. With a foreword by Bombay based filmmaker Zoya Akhtar and evocative poetry by Ankur Tewari, The Opium of Time is a romantic celebration of a city whose spirit is often camouflaged by a delicate and vulnerable veneer.
“I try to build series’ of images that have a cinematic energy, but then there are also very quiet and contemplative frames that co-exist side by side. The Opium of Time is very much ‘Mumbai’, and is bound together by poetry and a few of my own rather sentimental diary entries,” says Sippy.
“It’s unromantic, unvarnished, gritty – perhaps less appealing than the romantic ‘Bombay’ vision of art deco architecture and Irani cafes. Many people tell me that it reveals a city ‘hidden in plain sight’ and that the images showcase a city they have lived in for decades but have never seen.”
The moody, monochrome collection of images, shot over a decade, is anchored by a powerful natural event: the monsoon season. “It’s as uplifting and soulful a period as it is treacherous. The atmosphere is both emotional and electric. There is a special kind of joy and a very special kind of emotion that permeates the city.”
The Opium of Time is Sunhil's love letter to Mumbai.
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