An Imagined Reality is a photography project spanning two decades, documenting a farming community in South India where we lived for extended periods. Over the years, our communication with the community evolved from hand gestures to broken English, gradually improving but never fully bridging the gap between our worlds. Despite this, we have sought to capture an experience of a lifestyle that is changing—one that we have often found to be marked by peace, joy, and satisfaction in the rhythms of everyday life.

The title An Imagined Reality reflects the nature of our engagement with this place. Our photographs are not a direct or objective representation of the community, nor do they document its transformation over time. Instead, they reflect what we see and choose to see - moments of beauty, serenity, and simplicity that resonate with us. The rapid modernisation of India is an ever-present reality, one we are keenly aware of, but it remains a psychological rather than a visual presence in our work. We focus instead on a world that appears timeless, though we know it is not.

In many ways, our approach echoes the pastoral idealism of 19th-century artists such as John Constable and the Barbizon School, who sought to preserve an image of rural life untouched by industrial progress. Like Constable’s English landscapes or the Barbizon painters’ depictions of the French countryside, our images portray an environment that is shaped as much by our own sensibilities as by the realities of the place itself. The people we photograph are not anonymous subjects but individuals we have shared time with, and yet, as outsiders, we remain conscious of the limits of our understanding.

Much like those earlier artists who worked directly from nature, we are drawn to the quiet, unguarded moments of daily life - expressions, gestures, landscapes - that evoke a sense of harmony. Yet we recognise that this vision is inherently selective. Just as the Barbizon painters resisted the rigid academic traditions of their time in favour of a more personal, intimate view of rural life, we acknowledge that our work is shaped by what we find meaningful and beautiful. Our photographs are not a full or objective record of this community but an artistic interpretation of the world as we have experienced it.

At the heart of An Imagined Reality is the recognition that what we have captured is both real and, in some ways, a construction. Our images reflect the way of life we encountered—a life that appears peaceful and fulfilling—but they also speak to the inevitable tension between nostalgia and change, between observation and interpretation. This project is not about resisting modernity or preserving an untouched past, but about appreciating the persistence of beauty and simplicity even as the world transforms.

We hope that these photographs invite reflection on the ways in which we perceive and represent places that are not our own, and on the universal qualities of human experience that transcend time, geography, and culture. An Imagined Reality is, ultimately, both a documentation and a dream - a personal vision of a place that is always shifting, always just beyond reach.