Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Colours of Uni­ty show­cas­es Trinidad and To­ba­go's beau­ty, splen­dour and mag­nif­i­cence in pic­ture form. Edi­son Boodoos­ingh, Guardian free­lance pho­tog­ra­ph­er, is the mas­ter­mind be­hind that com­po­si­tion of pho­tographs fea­tur­ing beach­es, fes­ti­vals, beau­ty, ar­chi­tec­ture, na­ture and much more.

Speak­ing in a re­cent in­ter­view about his first pub­lished pic­to­r­i­al, Boodoos­ingh said, "I want­ed to show the dif­fer­ent as­pects of Tri­ni cul­ture; not on­ly Car­ni­val, but Di­vali and Phag­wa, which re­flect the var­i­ous cul­tures that make up T&T." The cov­er of the pic­to­r­i­al de­picts sev­er­al colours of "abeer" in pow­der form used in the Hin­du fes­ti­val called Holi

or Phag­wa. But Boodoos­ingh said be­sides the fes­ti­val of Phag­wa, the cov­er re­flect­ed the mul­ti-cul­tur­al and eth­nic races in the coun­try. Speak­ing about the colours on the cov­er, Boodoos­ingh said each brought for­ward its own beau­ty, just like each eth­nic­i­ty.

Boodoos­ingh be­gan pho­tog­ra­phy about 12 years ago, af­ter he said he be­came bored as a clerk in the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs. Want­i­ng to ful­fil a de­sire, he trav­elled abroad and pur­sued a course in com­mer­cial pho­tog­ra­phy. "I am al­ways one to fan­ta­sise over im­ages," he said. "I chose pho­tog­ra­phy be­cause I was al­ways in­ter­est­ed in im­ages, graph­ics and art, and since I couldn't paint, the next log­i­cal step was pho­tog­ra­phy, where you can still use ideas of com­po­si­tion and light to cre­ate some­thing artis­tic like a paint­ing, but with­out the paint." Boodoos­ingh joined the Guardian in 1998, and re­called his first as­sign­ment by then pho­to ed­i­tor, Robert Saun­ders. "I just walked in and asked to speak to the pho­to ed­i­tor, Robert Saun­ders. It was im­promp­tu. He gave me a roll of film and sent me to shoot Vie la Cou. It was around Car­ni­val."

Saun­ders liked what he saw when Boodoos­ingh re­turned, and used a pho­to in the news­pa­per. "It was from there I start­ed," Boodoos­ingh said. "This book [Colours of Uni­ty] was com­piled over a three-year pe­ri­od, us­ing a dig­i­tal cam­era," ?Boodoos­ingh said point­ing to the pic­to­r­i­al. He took pho­tos of his per­son­al places of in­ter­est and said he was keen to dis­play his im­ages to peo­ple who might not be aware that such places ex­ist in T&T. The pic­to­r­i­al fea­tures 50 pho­tos of beach­es, wa­ter­falls, re­li­gious stat­ues, places of wor­ship, ma­jor fes­ti­vals like Car­ni­val, Di­vali, Phag­wa, blue dev­ils, the en­dan­gered leatherback tur­tle, the Port-of-Spain Wa­ter­front and the beau­ti­ful face of Gabriel Wal­cott, Miss T&T World.

"A pho­tog­ra­ph­er tries to make the or­di­nary look ex­tra­or­di­nary, or dif­fer­ent. He tries to cap­ture a mo­ment in time, ex­pres­sions, move­ment and colour," said Boodoos­ingh, who lives in Tu­na­puna. He has trav­elled to Italy, Spain, Thai­land, Cam­bo­dia, Egypt, Pe­ru, Venezuela,and the Caribbean is­lands. But his favourite places to take pho­tographs are Italy and Spain. "I love the an­cient his­to­ry and their ar­chi­tec­ture."

Be­hind cam­era

Boodoos­ingh said when he was younger, he want­ed to be­come a gui­tarist. These days, he just en­joys be­ing be­hind the cam­era, al­ways on the look­out for some­thing unique about T&T. "Pho­tog­ra­phy is more of a pas­sion for me; mon­ey is not im­por­tant." So what's his ad­vice to as­pir­ing pho­tog­ra­phers?

"Pick up the cam­era and be­gin shoot­ing." He said for peo­ple who had an artis­tic in­cli­na­tion, but didn't have the abil­i­ty to draw or paint, pho­tog­ra­phy was a good way to de­vel­op those abil­i­ties.