When Suvajeet Duttagupta first tweeted asking if anyone wanted mock movie posters made of their display photos, he wasn’t expecting more than two or three replies. He was way off the mark. The 30-year-old research scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay was inundated with requests, giving birth to the hashtag #TwitterversePoster.
Over the past month or so, what was meant to be a little practice in digital editing for Duttagupta has resulted in more than 20 posters. It was a time that, he says, should have ideally been spent working on his thesis on nanotechnology. “You know how all the creativity starts spilling out when you have to sit and study?” he said. “It’s a lot like that for me.”
The native of Delhi was inspired by the subreddit Photoshop Battles where people post manipulated images. The idea, he says, was to create something absurd and fun, "to make mock posters similar to actual movie posters and play with the words like... Catfight Club, Rise of the Planet of the Corporate Apes”. “But slowly, they are just turning out to be more random and have a characteristic of their own, with whatever comes in my head.”
How did he choose his subjects? “I didn’t pick them, they picked me to make them a poster,” he said. “Anyone who said they want one got themselves a poster.” Some are friends, some are artists whose work he admires. “Some I’ve never talked to before I made these. But except for a couple, I’ve not made a single unsolicited poster. All have been requests. So if I ever get requests from famous Twitter handles that could be fun.”
It’s the credits that Duttagupta had a little difficulty with. “I would go through their tweets or their Instagram account to pick up some reference,” he said. “In case of Aaryan Gala [a DJ and music producer], I went through his SoundCloud and picked up words and names.”
Duttagupta, who also moonlights as a photographer, says he loves to create new things, and try to improve. His bio reads: Mad Scientist in the making – Hippie trapped in a Hipster world. “Honestly, some of the reaction and appreciation that I got from people – their joy, their laugh – it’s literally worth spending time to make something for someone.”
Here are some of the #TwitterversePoster creations.
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