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Through the lens Some of the photographs on display

In my mind, I have pictured a frame with photographs culled from most of the 25 frames on display at the Lakshana Museum of Aarts (till November 25, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.). Each of these frames, with six or seven photos, has been created by a student from the 2007 batch of Mohamed Iqbal’s “Light and Life Academy”, a photography institute in Lovedale, near Ooty.

My frame, arranged in no particular order, consists of a house with peeled off plaster set on a desolate land overrun with reeds, an old man whose bones are sticking out, a Smirnoff vodka bottle placed in a container filled with ice flakes, a man whose face is covered by eddies of smoke from the cigar he is puffing, a red Maruti Swift parked on a road in a countryside that is stripped of colour, a low-angle of a lorry with a bad paint job thrust close to what seems a colourful evening sky, the silhouette of a fishing net, a bird-like image created with a bottle of Absolut Vodka set between feathers arranged in the shape of a wing, a vase with a creeper running around it in rising circles, food made to look like a bouquet, the bare outline of a roadster shot with just top light, a villager reading a vernacular broadsheet with legs stretched on a grassy patch, a model sitting on a suitcase displaying her colourful attire and long legs while travellers in a passing train stick out their necks to look and wave at her, a blonde fashion model in a tumble-down house that seems straight of eighteenth century England, a monk from Leh, and finally, a photo composed with mug shots of men wearing oversize eye-glasses and funny looks.

The photographers have focused on what they consider their strengths or the areas they want to work in.

Because art directors, heads of advertising agencies and others who can provide work to these photographers have been invited to the exhibition. After it was inaugurated by cinematographer P.C. Sreeram on November 20, there was a steady flow of well-known photographers like Venkat Ram.

Predictably, a good number of photos could be massed under any of these categories – fashion, automobile, interiors and architecture, travel, people and so on. But not all pictures were taken with a career in mind. As Varun Gupta, one of the students, points out, there is an unnamed category called ‘passion photography’. Some pictures seem to have been taken on a lark or because the object was representative of what the photographer is passionate about.

For details, call Lakshana Museum of Aarts (8, Judge Jambulingum Street, Mylapore) on 28474331/ 28474053.

PRINCE FREDERICK

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