Amateur! Are you kidding?
Delhi Photography Club exhibited their 4th International Amateur Photography Exhibition at Indian Habitat Centre, New Delhi. Virendra Singh, one of the founders of Delhi Photography Club briefed A.Kameshwari from One World News about how the idea of creating such club struck to him, “It all started in 2010 when we were traveling somewhere to Uttarakhand. Back then, we bought the equipments but there was no place to learn from and the places that offered any such courses were pretty expensive. We had already spent Rs.30,000 on the equipments so, paying the same for learning it did not make sense to us. Since we used to travel around and were well employed, we thought of creating a platform where people can learn and the cost can be subsided. We did our homework and realized that the content being offered by people was irrelevant so, we created content which made sense to every stratum of people and came up with this platform which caters to creative needs of every photographer who wants to learn more about it with each passing day.”
Further adding to it he says, “We were two to three people who started the Delhi Photography Club but now, it’s run by me. I am one of the founders. This is 4th year of operation of ‘Nice Foto’ and 5th series of the exhibition. The same exhibition would travel to other parts of the country as well. The exhibition is called ‘Amateur Photography’ not on the lines of being amateur but because they are not doing it for money.”
Thirsty Boy: V.P.Singh
Virendra Singh, who professionally hails from the advertising sector of a branding and digital communication designing agency, is himself a photography fanatic. Delhi Photography Club presently, has a huge following on social media websites and their work has been appreciated by a lot of people. They have two to three modules through which one can get associated with. “We conducted a contest wherein the registrations were opened by April 2014 for a month, and there we received around 18,000 photos. We shortlisted 130-140 pictures and these have been portrayed here. There were few artists whose photographs were unbelievably good so, we have three of their photographs else, rest artists have only one picture each.”
Also, at the same event we had the opportunity to talk to few other photographers who spoke about what dragged them into photography and various other aspects.
Aman Agrawal, completed his graduation from Maharaja Agrasen College, Delhi University, is into photography since three years. Aman began photography with a Canon 1100D and now is a proud owner of a Canon 60D. “This is my 3rd group exhibition and I was the winner of the last one. Last time, there was only one photograph which was exhibited but this time two of my photographs has been exhibited- one ‘Just another usual day’ which was clicked in a small village in the valley of Aravali Hills and the second one ‘Freedom’, clicked at the Nahargarh Fort, Jaipur.”
Happy to be clicked: Shweta Shekhawat
What made you turn to photography?
Well that’s a tough question, there is a friend of mine who used to do cloud photography and I could never understand what he is doing. Then he showed me some of his work and I was taken aback. His pictures were amazing. He captured moments or things which we usually ignore or miss in our daily life. And it’s because of him that I got into photography. I was very enthusiastic about clicking pictures when I came to my first year and would click pictures of my friends through my phone. Then I started clicking with my digital camera which wasn’t used by anyone. Later my parents bought me a professional camera. My main genres of photography are fashion and street.
V.P.Singh is a retired government servant who was always a photography enthusiast. He has been clicking since 1977, but due to official engagements his love for photography took a back seat. But after his retirement in 2006, he is completely into photography but, it’s more of a hobby. “I like to shoot mostly street photography, landscape, portraits. I teach photography to under-privileged children at NGO’s. The experience of teaching them has been really good; they cannot afford the expensive gadgets/equipments so, we provide them with cameras. It’s a three day course and for us the best moment is to look at their face glowing at their first click and very first picture. It is my love for art that has driven me into photography.”
Rainbow: V.P.Singh
Do you think portraits are the reality of a person?
It depends on the photographer how he/she clicks the picture. A portrait has to be a summary of a person’s personality, the gestures, postures etc. everything has to be given equal importance. I use a Nikon D7000 camera to click pictures.
Cheryl Mukherji is an eighteen-year old, young amateur photographer who wanted to defy the cliché of pursuing medical studies when she discovered her love for photography after her 11th grade exams. She has been clicking for four years, now. One of the most important things photography has taught her is that it is important to embrace your inner-self and it does not matter where you are from as long as you know where you want to be.
“I have broken the barriers set by my parents for me to take up medicine. I loved photography ever since I got to know about it. I am just eighteen and I would love to take up photography as a career. I have taken psychology as my graduation subject and I believe that it would help me to get deep in photographing portraits. This is my 3rd year with DPC and I am really thankful to them for giving me such an opportunity. This is my second picture in three years that has been selected for the exhibition. And yes, I believe I embraced my inner-self through the medium of clicking pictures.”
How do you think psychology and photography can be brought together?
I believe psychology will help me to peel up the inner personality of a person and bring it out in a picture. Photography is perhaps, another medium to know much more about a person if clicked in a certain way.
Picture on Rotator: Freedom: Aman Agrawal
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