“We’re always waiting”, says Usha Bn about her series of photographs of people waiting in Bangalore. They are mostly photographs of women — women waiting for buses, for trains, carrying children, bags full of shopping, women waiting alone — where harassment isn’t the only frame. In one, a woman is sitting on a bench alone at the Bangalore Railway Station, hunched over in a red sari. There’s a blue door behind her, and she is watching something looking both worried and expectant.
In another series on working women, there is a lovely photograph of two police women walking down a road in Davangere. They’re laughing, and Usha says she loved how smart and happy they looked, even though they probably had tensions of their own, in their jobs, and as women. “These are interesting stories. There are so many of them, and they should be paid attention to,” she says.
Usha began to take photographs a year and a half ago, and she calls them a love letter to Bangalore. She is interested in capturing the ways in which we negotiate and navigate our city, and the lives and economies that nobody talks about. She is keen to do a series on women travelling and discovering the city alone — when she had once asked her twelve-year-old daughter to go and buy something for the house, she asked, “Isn’t it so nice to be in your own thoughts and walk?” These are the joys that Usha says she wants to capture.
Two policewomen on their way to work in Davangere.
Immersed, at Harihara.
Magic at Belur Chenekeshara temple
Engrossed in Bangalore
Her scooter is her shop.
Transfixed by earrings
Dreamy at Bangalore City Station
You can follow more of Usha’s work on Instagram and Facebook.