New Delhi, Aug 21 - Noted photographer Prabir Purkayastha has taken a break from his signature photo-essays on Ladakh, this time depicting a love triangle between Adam, Eve and Lucifer through snapshots of nature in Southeast Asia and Assam in India.

The show, 'Return to Eden', comprising more than 50 photographs in colour and black-and-white, has opened at the Art Alive Gallery as part of the inaugural cache of the India Art Summit during Aug 19-22.

The photographs have been culled from his recent trips to the rain forests and ruins of ancient Hindu temples in Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand and to the riverine bird sanctuaries in Assam.

'I have used nature and its populace as metaphors for the story of Eden - to portray the Biblical fall of Paradise. It is also the tale of life. For me, Eden is a love triangle between three characters - Adam, Eve and Lucifer,' Purkayastha said.

Photography, feels Purkayastha, who has risked his life shooting in the jungles of Southeast Asia, is yet to come of age in India.

'It will take quite a while before photography becomes mainstream art. It is a sum total of many factors. People are yet to identify with photography as art. Galleries, museums and international art fairs have to take the lead in promoting photography,' the 56-year-old photographer said.

The exhibits, divided into three segments - 'Creation', 'Flight' and 'Temptation', represent photographer Purkayastha and curator Ina Puri's vision of Eden.

'I selected the exhibits from over 1,000 photographs. Prabir is known for his photographs of Ladakh, but I wanted him to break out of his Ladakh mould and interpret nature through his camera across Asia,' Puri told IANS.

The sequence, which begins with coloured frames of dense forests, wilderness, seas lashing against rocks, full rivers in monsoon, green meadows on an overcast day and gushing streams, echoes with a riot of colours.

Close shots of exotic flowers, leaves, trees and water bodies enhance the clarity of colours and capture every fold and turn of the petals, leaves, twigs, stones and rippling streams that carpet the exotic tropical forests of Southeast Asia.