Beauty, it is said, lies in the eyes of the beholder. As a series of beautiful photographs capturing Mother Nature in all her varying moods lit up the large screen in the CSOI auditorium on a bright October morning, the truth of this statement became evident. The photographer, or the beholder, in this case was Dr K K Dwivedi, a 1996 batch IAS officer, for whom photography is obviously more than a hobby – it is a passion which speaks through his photographs.
The beholders were also the audience, Prerana members, their families and friends. The event was a photography workshop under the auspices of Prerana, conducted by Dr Dwivedi on Sunday, October 4th 2015. The traditional lamp was lit by Chief Secretary Sri V K Pipersenia, in the presence of other senior officers and Prerana members led by Prerana President Smt Suman Pipersenia. There were also several youngsters present, as photography is a subject of interest to most people.
Prerana Secretary Anamika Tiwari welcomed the gathering and introduced Dr Dwivedi and his team, consisting of Udayan Borthakur (a conservation geneticist who has for long been working on the documentation of wildlife and natural heritage in south and south-east Asia using photography) and two youngsters Chinmoy and Jyotirban. She spoke about Dr Dwivedi’s self-taught interest in photography and mentioned that he has authored a couple of books, and is working on one about the wildlife of Assam.
Dr Dwivedi’s hour-long presentation was meticulous and detailed. At the outset he said that photography is a serious and challenging subject and it would be difficult to do justice to it in the allotted time of one hour. The presentation started with a slide show of Dr Dwivedi’s own photographs. The beautiful images were mostly on wildlife and Nature, shot in diverse locations such as Kaziranga, Pabitora, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, etc. The images frozen in time and captured for ever stood out for their perspective, angles, play of light and shade and composition.
The next part of the presentation focussed on types of cameras and lenses, and then moved on to the technical aspects of photography such as resolution, types of digital files, manipulating the white balance and using it creatively especially when taking shots of landscapes, exposure, metering and so on. This first seemed daunting to amateurs like us who were in the audience, but we soon realised that if one goes behind the jargon, mastering the basics is quite simple and the results would be well worth it. Of course, to attain the level of a professional or semi-professional would be beyond most of us, but even the small tips go a long way in helping to take a better photograph.
Dr Dwivedi ended his presentation with a series of tips for taking better photos, based on his own learning and experiences. He kept the audience engaged throughout the presentation, which was interactive with many in the audience asking questions and at the end everyone was asked to go out with their cameras or cell phones and take pictures, which could then be shown to the team for advice and suggestions.
For more information on the workshop, a PPT on the whole presentation has also been uploaded on this site.
