Remembering S Paul, the recluse with a camera

Paul, a photographer whose black-and-white frames captured the magic in the mundane

There is a particular photograph by S Paul in which a group of women is seen praying during Muharram. The black-and-white image has a rare performative element about it, especially in the way it portrays the emotions swirling within each woman. Another one is a haunting photograph of two women on their way to work, walking through mist, lunchboxes on their heads.

Both these photographs, like hundreds of others that Paul clicked during his lifetime, capture a slice of life and a moment in time the way few photographers before him did. Paul, who died on August 16, three days