NEW DELHI: Taking a step towards preserving the country's photographic heritage, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts (IGNCA) has organised a five-day workshop here this week along with the National Research Laboratory for Conservation of Cultural Property (NRLC) to train people in various cultural institutes to ensure that old photographs remain "picture-perfect".

"Unfortunately, we have very few trained people in this field. It is a relatively new medium here and there is an urgent need for us to train people to keep this precious legacy of the past for the future. The condition of photographs in various collections in the country is not too good,'' says the head of the Kalanidhi division, Ramesh C. Gaur.Learning from its own mistakes, IGNCA has decided to ensure that it passes this knowledge to the future. With a huge collection of photographs -- including the whole collection of photographs by the eminent photographer Raja Deen Dyal -- that has moved from one building to another, one of the few tips that the IGNCA has to offer other repositories of culture is good storage.

"In the last ten years, there was some damage to our collections as we didn't have proper storage facilities. However, we are now working towards creating an ideal storage facility in the new building. Apart from imparting ways to prevent decay to photographs, the workshop will also concentrate on curative ways to stop further deterioration,'' Dr. Gaur said.

Careful about not using chemical cures to solve problems, the workshop experts will not propagate an immediate "chemical-fix-it" for a problem on the photographs. "Using chemicals is very dangerous for photographs. We aim to give people who handle them regularly tips on how to ensure that they don't get spoilt. We also hope to be able to create a Centre for Excellence with the help of the National Museum Institute and NRLC at IGNCA,'' he added.IGNCA has ensured that the lessons of the workshop will not be forgotten after five days. "One of our goals is to spread awareness in IGNCA. We intend to do that. We hope to be able to spread this world all around the country,'' he said.

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