I Left My Address with the Storm- Making of the Book

Pre-Order a Copy

About the work: photographing bad weather

I am drawn to bad weather.

Rain, snow, wind, cyclones, fog. The moments when visibility drops and the environment stops being friendly. These are the times when most people try to reach home as quickly as possible. I usually do the opposite. I step outside with my camera.

I have an irresistible attraction to extreme weather. For years, it has pulled me in like a moth to fire. I began photographing bad weather seriously in 2014, when I encountered Super Cyclone Hudhud on the coast of the Bay of Bengal in Odisha. That experience changed the way I saw weather. After that, I was pulled even closer to these conditions.

I have photographed snowstorms that lasted for more than a week without stopping. I have worked in extreme cold, near-zero visibility, surviving with very limited clothing. A few years ago in Uttarakhand, I narrowly survived what could have been certain death. I walked more than twenty kilometers alone through relentless rain to reach a village below, to arrange rescue for dozens of people stranded above 14,000 feet.

I don’t see bad weather as spectacle. I see it as a moment when control shifts. Streets behave differently. Landscapes lose their certainty. People either move carefully or disappear altogether. The environment takes charge, and everything else responds.

Photographing in these conditions is risky. For my camera, for my body, for balance and judgment. Rain enters everything. Wind pushes you off position. Cold slows down the hands. Often I cannot see clearly through the viewfinder. But this discomfort sharpens attention. It forces presence. There is no comfort, no waiting for the right light. Decisions are instinctive.

I feel weather in my body, under my skin. Every cell responds to the air of extreme nature. In those moments, scale becomes clear. Human presence feels temporary. I feel my own smallness, not as an idea, but as a physical fact.

These photographs are not about showing the power of nature in a dramatic way. They are about staying inside it. About choosing presence when retreat feels sensible. About acknowledging vulnerability instead of avoiding it.

This body of work eventually became a handmade book. I named it I Left My Address with the Storm.In Bengali: আমি ঝড়ের কাছে রেখে গেলাম আমার ঠিকানা.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Why I made this book, and why it is handmade

This book exists because I chose to make it myself.

For photographers without access to established photobook publishers, self-publishing is not just an option, it is often the only realistic path. Most publishers look for familiar names, existing visibility, or a guaranteed market. I understand why that happens, but it also means many personal, slow, or difficult bodies of work never find a physical form.

Self-publishing gives me freedom. Freedom over what the work looks like, how it is edited, how it is sequenced, and how it reaches people. There are no compromises made to fit trends, expectations, or market logic. The book stays close to the work, and close to my intent.

I also chose to make this book in a limited edition. Producing 500 or 1,000 copies of a photobook is financially risky and emotionally draining. Photobooks are expensive to produce, expensive to buy, and the audience is small and specific. Large print runs often end up sitting in boxes, waiting to be sold.

Instead, I prefer to work in small numbers. It allows me to stay involved with every copy. It keeps the process sustainable. It removes pressure. Each book finds its reader slowly, without urgency. This pace feels right for the work.

The decision to make the book by hand came naturally.

Weather shapes landscapes through force, time, and imperfection. I wanted the book to carry some of that quality. A handmade book has variation. Slight inconsistencies. A physical presence. It does not try to look perfect, and that honesty matters to me.

Working with paper, thread, covers, and materials is something I deeply enjoy. I like touching the materials that carry the images. I like the process of sequencing, designing, testing layouts, choosing paper, and slowly arriving at a final form. Making the book becomes an extension of photographing. Both require patience, attention, and acceptance of uncertainty.

By making the book myself, I stay connected to every stage of its life. From choosing the images to binding the final copy, nothing is outsourced. The object carries the time spent with it. The marks of handling. The decisions made along the way.

This book is not meant to be mass-produced. It is meant to be held. To be opened slowly. To age. To carry traces of use.

Like the weather that shaped the photographs, the process of making this book has shaped the object itself.

                                      ---------------------------------------------------------------

The process of making the book

This is how I made a handmade book.Hours of work, compressed into a few minutes of fast-forward video.

The book began long before I started cutting paper or binding pages. It began with returning to the photographs and sitting with them again, away from the intensity of making them. I was not looking for the strongest images individually. I was looking for images that could speak to each other.

Image selection was slow. Many photographs I was emotionally attached to did not make it into the book. I was more interested in rhythm than highlights. Some images are quiet, almost empty. Some hold tension. I wanted the sequence to feel like weather itself, moments of stillness interrupted by pressure.

Sequencing was the most important part of the process. I printed small reference prints and lived with them. I rearranged them again and again. I paid attention to how one image ended and how the next one began. Sometimes two strong images together felt too loud. Sometimes a weaker image was necessary to let the next one breathe.

I avoided captions, dates, and locations. I did not want the reader to be anchored to facts. I wanted the experience to remain open, closer to memory than documentation.

Once the sequence felt right, I began designing the book. The design was kept minimal. No decoration. No visual tricks. The layout exists only to support the photographs. White space, margins, and pacing were considered carefully. Turning a page is part of reading a photobook, and I wanted that movement to feel intentional.

Paper was one of the most important decisions. I chose handmade paper sourced directly from makers in West Bengal. The surface is slightly rough, uneven, and tactile. It does not produce perfectly smooth prints. That was a deliberate choice.

The texture softens the images. It breaks their sharpness. Blacks are absorbed differently. Details feel a little unsettled. I wanted the photographs to resist perfection, just as the weather they were made in resists control. The roughness of the paper adds friction, and that friction matches the mood of the work.

Paper is not neutral. It changes how an image is experienced. I wanted the reader to feel the images not only with the eyes, but with the hands.

The cover and binding were treated with the same attention. I wanted the book to feel quiet, solid, and slightly imperfect. Like something shaped rather than manufactured. Every decision was made with touch in mind. How the cover feels when it is picked up. How the pages fall open. How the book ages with use.

Making each copy by hand is time-consuming. Pages are cut, folded, aligned, checked, and bound slowly. Mistakes happen. Some copies take longer than others. That variation is part of the work. Each book carries the marks of being handled and made, not assembled.

I like that this process cannot be rushed. It forces patience. It demands attention. In many ways, it mirrors how the photographs were made. Working in bad weather teaches you to accept limits, to respond rather than control. Making this book required the same mindset.

The final book is not meant to look perfect.It is meant to feel honest.

What you hold is not just a container for images.It is the result of time, decisions, materials, and hands at work.

This book is the result of staying with something for a long time. With the weather, with the photographs, and with the act of making. It is not a fast object and it is not meant for many hands. It exists for those who are willing to slow down, look closely, and spend time with uncertainty. If you choose to own a copy, you are not just buying a book. You are holding a trace of weather, time, and presence.

I Left My Address with the Storm

A handmade, limited-edition photobook by the author.Edition of 49 copies + 1 Artist Proof.

The book contains 40 black and white photographs spread across 72 pages.Each copy is handmade, with a hardcover binding, and produced in small numbers to preserve the integrity of the work and the process behind it.

No two copies are exactly the same.Each book carries the marks of being made by hand.

Pre-Order a Copy