Artists and galleries are reshaping art photography in India by focusing on cultural representation, identity, and storytelling. Champa Sharath is one such photographer whose work delves into heritage, rituals, and everyday lives capturing nuances that often go unnoticed. Gallery Sumukha, known for promoting art that bridges tradition and modernity, has provided a platform for voices like hers, ensuring that photography isn’t just about aesthetic but also about meaning.

Through curated exhibitions and photo-series, these practitioners explore questions of belonging: how culture informs identity, how memory and place intermingle, and what gets preserved or lost as societies modernise. Visual motifs from architecture and textiles to ceremonies and facial expressions act not only as pretty compositions but as documents of cultural continuity.

Representation here is two-way: not just showing culture through the lens, but involving communities, narratives and perspectives that lead to authenticity and depth. The conversation extends to how art institutions support emerging photographers to tell these stories, the role of art education, and how viewers engage with cultural photography what they see, what they feel, and what assumptions get challenged.

Art photography in this context becomes more than images it’s a medium of cultural memory, critique, and connection, with photographers like Sharath and galleries like Sumukha contributing to a richer, more inclusive visual culture in India.