Promoting city as a tourists’ paradise

By Sanjay Manchanda

PHOTOGRAPHS certainly provide the best means of going beyond the realities of time and space, enabling one to enter "other" domains, which in real life may practicably be out of bounds.

It is no surprise, therefore, that we all have that natural, innate passion for photography. However, to have just a penchant for photography is one thing and to practice it as a creative art is another. For a photographer, whether amateur or professional, to excel, this gap has to be abridged first. That exactly is the avowed aim of the Photographic Society of Chandigarh (PSC), a voluntary non-profit organisation founded nearly seven years ago by keen amateur and professional photo artists of the city and its surrounding areas.

Ranked among the top 10 in India as per the Federation of Indian Photography (FIP) having association with Federation of International de L’ Art Photographique, F.I.A.P., Belgium, which is a UNESCO- recognised international body, the PSC’s main objective is not only to promote photography as a sophisticated science, but also help in the all-round development of photography not merely as a technique or an art but as a comprehensive "cultural tool".

To fulfil its novel ambition of bringing the widest possible array of photography works to the art lovers of this region, a dedicated band of local photo artists, led by Navneet Saxena regularly organises exhibitions of International Print Circuit in collaboration with the India International Photographic Council and the Photographic Society of America in which nearly 35 countries participate.

Apart from this grand show, the PSC annually organises national salons and group exhibitions in association with at least one eminent artist of the country. Every member of the PSC also gets a chance to exhibit his work in these expositions. PSC members have individually won many national and international awards and their pictures keep appearing in leading national and international magazines and newspapers. Some of the members are also on the panel of judges of the India International Photographic Council (IIPC), Delhi.

Last month, the PSC hosted the city’s largest-ever photo exposition in the form of the Indo-Austrian photo exhibition, in which renowned participants from the Kamera Klub Linz, Austria, the Photographic Association of Dum Dum, Calcutta, and members of the PSC participated. The works displayed at the exhibition drew praise from art lovers and experts of photography for the exquisite range and immaculate presentation.

"However, this was just a warm-up exercise", says Navneet Saxena. "Now we are gearing ourselves up to host in Chandigarh the first-ever FIP Convention of Northern India from December 25 to 28 this year" he reveals.

The prestigious biannual convention — the 19th in the series — whose valedictory function will be presided over by Lt Gen B.K.N. Chhibber, Governor of Punjab and Administrator, Chandigarh, has a highly imaginative theme of "Chandigarh as a tourist’s paradise".

"We generally felt that our city was being projected merely as a transit tourist destination because of its strategic location as a gateway to the neighbouring states of Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Haryana. Few people seem to realise that Chandigarh itself also had a vast array of offerings for the first-time visitor, "he says.

More than 250 top-notch photo artists from all parts of the country will participate in the convention to be held with the active support of the local Administration. The programme schedule of the convention includes discussions and seminars, presentations of digital imaging, portraiture and modelling, slide-shows, solarization and montage technique, product photography, distinction assessments, delegates’ photo contests and TOPS Exhibition. Since the tentative budget for the mega event is running into lakhs, many top photographers, PSC members and other leading photo artists of the region are getting together on a common platform to pool in their resources.

As a unique fund-raising exercise, some of the PSC photo artists are donating photographs for cards, calendars and other publication materials.

TOPS Exhibition, says Saxena, will be one of the unique features of the convention in which only specialised degree holders from Federation International de Art Photographique, Belgium, and the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain will be allowed to display their works. Twenty such photo artists have already confirmed their entries in TOPS Exhibition.