Portraits of the handsome pup Theo, made possible by Reshmi.

Karthik and I met Esther at a Creative Mornings talk early this year. Since then, we have had the pleasure of visiting Esther and Dikko’s studio twice and every time we visit, we are lost in their fantastic world of printmaking and carefully designed books! They moved into a new studio a few months ago and I have had the opportunity to photograph both the spaces for them. Their studio is truly a wonderful place and my fondness for them both grows tenfold every time I see them!

Photographer Seemal Karthik brings stories to life with her camera; in each picture there’s a curious blend of intimacy and intensity that makes her work whimsical, wondrous and distinctive.

From a trip through Japan to time-travel tokens and carefully styled set-ups to stunning portraits, she mixes an eye for simple details with a creative flair for storytelling, capturing images that we could gaze at all day long.

I understand it has been a few months since we were there, yes, but we really do need to talk about Japan. I’m not going to put down the itinerary etc, cuz you don’t need to hear about those things, but I will leave the links at the bottom of this post, the links that helped us plan our trip easily!

Some of our pictures and an essay Seemal wrote about affordability in cities has been published in the latest issue of My Liveable City! 

Found ourselves at a Muay Thai fight. Emotions ran high. Read ahead!