Traveling around with camera in my hand, and having my eyes on the viewfinder, everything seemed surreal, and all the boredom and loneliness seemed to sweep away,” expresses the fervent photographer, Rabindra Pradhan, 23, who is a recent Bachelor’s graduate in Fine Arts (BFA) from Kathmandu University.[break]
Photography has rooted itself as a superior medium to narrate stories, advertise products, and communicate visual ideas and record history. It facilitates the accurate portrayal of a subject that could otherwise only be merely expressed by literary or painterly methods.
With every other mobile phone having a camera and the culture of uploading all kinds of pictures on social networking sites, photography is seen and practiced widely among the youths.
Moreover, many youngsters are also taking it up as a profession as they cannot only depict the subject aptly but this form of art is also a refuge for them, a higher realm that solaces their minds and broadens their horizon.
Chemi Dorje Lama, 26, who completed his Bachelor’s in Arts (BA), shared that his father was an avid photographer, and he got the interest from him.
“It was just a passion a few years back, and I captured family moments occasionally. But as I grew up, I got more intrigued, and learnt some photographic techniques from YouTube that aided me. But to fully satiate my desires, I started taking workshops which made me proficient in photography,” he shares.
Lama, a freelance photographer who has worked for different genres ranging from food, artists to art pieces, to name just a few, explains that photography gives him a liberating experience because he can carry his camera and shoot anything anywhere, as there are no parameters.
“I worked at a bank and an NGO after I completed my Bachelor’s, but I never liked the eight-hour cubicle work. It was then that I decided to bring about a shift in the paradigm, and get back to my interest that was photography which gave me a different perspective of looking at things,” echoes 23-year-old Gopen Rai.
Rai gushes that taking pictures has made him realize that there are other beautiful things apart from the ones which get limelight, and he derives the greatest pleasure as a photographer when he is fair to the subject, and when people get the desired message from it.
There are a number of photography schools giving a range of workshops to interested youths in order to help them unleash their
creativity.
The Image Park is one such school which is open to anybody who has a zeal for taking pictures.
“We conduct series of workshops where professional photographers teach the effective ways of taking pictures. It’s normally a 10-day course where the participants learn some theories, the tactics of handling the mechanism well, do some tasks and make photo portfolios,” informs Sumeet Shakya, the initiator and founder of Image Park.
Artudio Nepal is another institution which gives a gateway of professionalism to the ones who are genuinely interested in photography.
“Any amateur knows how to click pictures from cameras. Our goal is to teach them creative handling. At Artudio, we don’t focus on taking pictures but making them. For that, we also give them some art lessons so that they’re instilled that an artistic perception is required when one takes a snap,” explains Biken Ranjit, the photography workshop coordinator of Artudio Nepal.
He adds that they act as facilitators to bridge the gap between professional and amateur photographers.
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