Ayan Nandi (in the background) with Aditya Desai,
a participant of the Junior Photography Workshop
VISUALTHEQUE, along with SMART TREE, recently concluded a series of three workshops – two dealing in Photography and one in Creative Writing – successfully.
The series began on June 6, 2011 and concluded with a Grand Finale on June 12, 2011 at Café Mocha.
The Photography workshops were aimed at two age groups – 10-16 years and 18+; whereas the Creative Writing workshop was targeted at the young age group of 10-16 years.
The result of these workshops was a range of photographs and write-ups from a bunch of creative, intuitive and bright individuals.
Richa S. Mohta, Director, SMART TREE and also a participant of the Photography workshop said, “I had the pleasure of working with eminent experts like Ayan Nandi and Nilofer Sen as a part of the Visualtheque team. They are one of the most meticulous professionals I have come across. The opportunity to interact with them professionally and personally has helped me get an insight to photography and creative writing in a unique way. They are great teachers and the way they mould their teachings in youngsters and adults is commendable. They really germinated a great interest in the participants and instilled in them great love for photography and writing. Overall it was a great experience which will be cherished forever. I look forward to the next time we work together.”
The Photography Workshops were not limited to the technical aspects of photography and camera. The classes were structured to guide the participants to come up with better compositions and be more observant regarding the subjects of their photographs. In the words of Ayan Nandi, “No click is a random click. Something interests you and that is why you click. All you need to do is figure out what interests you.”
The participants had the opportunity of roaming the streets of the city of Kolkata and exploring different subjects through their lens. According to Aditya Shah, an enthusiastic participant of the workshop, “Ayan for me is a person who helped me understand the very fundamentals of photography in an extremely flexible way. The good part about the learning process (…) was that it was not strictly methodical in nature. It was a very spontaneous process based on the basic principles of photography (…) that set the foundation for us, on which, we eventually managed to build our own different stories through the language of photography. Such a building process was only possible because of the kind of creative freedom and artistic space that Ayan gave us (….) Overall it’s been an incredible journey to have worked under Ayan.”
Nilofer Sen (right) with the participants
of the Creative Writing Workshop
The Creative Writing Workshop encouraged young minds to express themselves in the written form – whether fiction or non-fiction. It aimed to make them more vocal about their thoughts and experiences and share the same with a large number of people. As per Nilofer Sen, “A writer is anyone who writes. So we all are born writers. The difference lies in good and bad writing.” The classes were structured around fun and innovative methods of generating ideas and turning them into short stories and write-ups. The Workshop was not limited to writing alone. It expanded to public speaking where participants were encouraged to verbally share their stories with their peers.
According to Vibhav Bhartia, a young participant of the creative writing workshop, “I did enjoy the classes a lot; the classes did help me. And I would like to attend similar workshops in the future hosted by VISUALTHEQUE.”
VISUALTHEQUE plans to host a series of creative workshops for both children and adults in the near future. For more information, keep an eye out for this space.
