Photography in India coming of age.
2006 has been a windfall for Indian photographers in terms of awards. Six photographers won awards, from first prizes to honorable mentions, at World Press Photo, Headliner Awards, Days Japan, and Best of Photojournalism. I don’t remember so many Indian photographers having won so many awards in a single year. Personally, what makes me happy is that three of these photographers, Rajesh Kumar Singh, Manish Swarup and Rafiq Maqbool work with the Associated Press.
Of course, in 2005, Arko Datta of Reuters won the World Press Photo and Prakash Singh of Afp won the first prize at Days Japan What started as a small peak last year has grown in height this year. Indian photographers have won awards at the international level before, but the frequency had been spread out too far.
There is no dearth of talent in this one billion-plus populated country. What it lacks is role models, and concerted efforts to mould and groom the talent. Indian photography is sometimes reminiscent of its ancient heritage. There are small zealous kingdoms who strive hard to protect their boundaries. There are no empires. What Indian photography needs now is the disintegration of these kingdoms and merging together to form a big empire.
by Sebastian John at Fri Mar 24 23:45:32 UTC 2006 (ed. Jun 9 2006)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment