I am a firm believer that digital imaging has already rivaled the chemical process in its ability to make fine prints. An exceptional digital print, on a fine quality paper, can take on all the delicacy of a masterful photogravure. Each is, after all, ink on paper. The unfortunate thing is that skillful digital fine art photography is being created by so few, and today’s artworld is brimming with hastily made, conceptually oriented, digital bric-a-brac.

We photographers are a despicable bunch. We take photographs. The best of us do not show people as they wish to be seen, instead, we show people as we imagine they really are.

This book does not try to “document” any particular aspect of Indian life. To me, doing such a thing would seem a pretentious and pseudo-scientific undertaking, especially for someone from the West. The photographs also make no intentional social or political statement. I never say, when discussing my work, that I am “concerned” with anything (another favorite word tossed about, all too much, by young and socially conscious post-modernists).

I have learned that the camera is, as is often said, a powerful weapon. And the wielder of that weapon can be perceived as dominating and threatening, even if that is not his or her intent.