KARAN VAID SPENT MUCH OF HIS BOYHOOD, in the 1970s and 1980s, being shepherded to dog shows all around India by his dog-enthusiast parents. Decades later, Vaid, by then a photographer, found pictures from those trips while digitising old family albums. “I decided that I should revisit these shows and see what was going on,” he said. Thus was born the Indian Dog Show Project, a series that captures scenes from dog shows held across the country, from Chennai to Amritsar. Vaid has been working on it since October 2013.
When shooting the series, Vaid wanted to avoid taking the “classical documentary approach.” He was struck by how many dog owners “loved the camera on them,” and how some enjoyed quasi-celebrity status “at the top of the dog-show fraternity.” This, he said, inspired him to assume the role of a paparazzo, and to take pictures “in the genre” of entertainment photography. His photographs, shot through with a voyeuristic but affectionate tone, depict obsessive handlers, quibbling judges and sinewy dogs competing for fame and fortune.
Vaid quickly became familiar with the dog-show subculture’s internal politics. “Judges are respected and most contestants treat them like rock stars,” he said. But, sometimes, dog owners—who can be “very passionate people”—do not hesitate to “vent their anger (however misplaced) by confronting judges during the show.” He also witnessed the seedy underbelly of these events, and remarked on how, especially in north India, they “sometimes attract unscrupulous puppy-mill breeders who camp just outside the venues, trying to sell the popular breeds of that state.”
Even while Vaid witnessed all of the dog-show world’s oddities, he became one himself. “I have become a bit of a permanent fixture at these dog shows,” he said. “Sometimes people come up to me and ask me about what I am doing, and don’t usually understand why.”