Edges of photographs sandpapered to a smooth blend, white lines coaxed out by scratching with a blade, and copious notes on the margins of images on how exactly the images should be, were they to take on full life as art works. For him, photography, by itself, was inadequate in its technical limitations, and manual intervention became a way of wresting control over the accidental surprises in photography. In dismantling the basic premise of photography, Broota sought in it a take-off point for engaging with the transformative potential of the creative imagination. Some seven years ago, he began to work on the computer, finding in it the ideal means to control images giving him greater agency over the ideas he wished to express.

The photograph as reference has often been the back-bone of his work. Unlike voyeuristic photography, he is both the subject and the object of his own gaze, whereby the camera becomes a means of inscribing his physical presence into the painting. The almost monochromatic, monumental humanscapes that form a large part of his work take their cue from photographs of his own body or of his close compatriots. The extraordinary optical faithfulness of the photograph and the degree to which it can shorten the sitting time of the poser has meant that photography has enabled artists to introduce into their work, awkward angles and difficult-to-hold poses of transition. If once, the mirror was the sole optical device for self-imaging, setting up a tricky relationship with the lateral image and the three quarter profile, the camera made possible a direct frontal representation, captured in an instant3. Strangely though, Broota's paintings and photographs are not about the instant. They are posed, composed images by which the notion of dynamic change is turned into a constant, wherein transformation is offered as an eternal phenomenon.

The LCD viewfinder on digital cameras has changed the way artists introduce autobiographical material into their work. The luminious LCD screen, flipped so as to allow a view of the pose, displays a miniaturized frame of the image to be recorded. Micro-lenses allow for extreme close-up images, and timing devices have done away with the need for a second presence to take the picture. Film-based cameras more often than not make the task of self-framing and focusing difficult to control. Moreover, the process is usually collaborative, with hours spent in explaining to the technicians at a photo-studio what exactly is required of the image. The discreetness and flexibility of computer technology has given Broota the capability to collapse the boundary between fixity and transience, where the photographed image fed into a computer allows him an opportunity to exercise his imagination. If his early body of experiments with photo-collage retained an element of fragile transparency, his digital collages have ironed out the wrinkles where the photograph and the autographical mark seamlessly blend giving the images a fluid presence.