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When the shutter bug bites

Creative Hobby People from various walks of life who had one common hobby, photography, converged through their works at this exhibition

It literally had all the ingredients of a carnival. But unlike the conventional one, the ‘Drisyam 2008’ put up for the first time by keralaclicks.net was a carnival that had its germination in pixels. The recent exhibition of photographs, for which the Durbar Hall Art Gallery was the venue, was the result of tireless efforts by a not-so-small group of shutterbugs who pursue photography as a hobby.

The hobbyists who initially met (virtually!) each other in Yahoo’s Flickr community later decided to come closer under another banner and they christened it as keralaclicks.net. ‘Drisyam 2008’ was their maiden show. The community which came into being in mid-2008 now has 825 members and is still growing.

Keralaclicks.net has photography enthusiasts as members from both Kerala and abroad and many took to it to melt down the monotony of their professional life. “As a group containing Keralites and non-Keralites our attempt is to understand and share Kerala’s history, culture, art and literature through photography”, reveals Santhosh, one of the enthusiasts.

In the four-day long show, they had put together more than 100 photographs contributed by 75 amateurs. With multitude of frames spread across umpteen number of themes, the ‘Drisyam 2008’ was a delectable visual treat. As the entries had no specific subject to hold on to one could see photographs belonging to myriad themes under different categories such as portrait, pictorial, human interest and landscape.

Captured in pixels, most of the frames were arresting; several had deep emotions oozing out of them. Snaps of Kerala’s diverse and colourful social fabric in all its richness found its way into the exhibition.

“Each member was asked to send five nominations out of which one was finally selected. The three-member selection panel chose the exhibits sitting in Kochi , Bangalore and London,” quips one of the organisers.

According to the organisers topic-wise priority was given to themes centring Kerala. More than 40 members attended the exhibition and met each other for the first time. Apart from those who came from across Kerala there were also many who travelled all the way from Chennai, Bangalore and even France to attend the show. In the times of spiralling internet crimes, the efforts of keralaclicks.net prove how creatively it can be channelised.

As part of their social commitment, through ‘Drisyam 2008’, the members of keralaclicks.net also had decided to pool the money sourced from the sale proceeds of photographs to support the medical aid of Arya, a 4-year old child from Kozikode suffering from leukaemia. A workshop on the basics of photography was also organised as part of the exhibition.

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