25 August 2008

Worldwide-photowalk and related stuffs

Keeping Bangalore CleanI was a participant of World Wide photowalk which took place in Bangalore last Saturday(Aug-23rd). The walk in Bangalore was led renowned photograph Mahesh Shataram. The activity was conducted in 200 other cities all over the world on the same day. The walk was sponsored by many biggies of photography industry Adobe Systems, MPIX, Epson etc.

The walk covered the entire Residency Road, starting from Mayo Hall and terminating at Bangalore Club near Richmond. Before the start Mahesh brief about the intention of the walks and a few approach towards the photograp composition. He iterated "Capture as if it is your Residency road".
We were supposed to move in a group of 5-6 people. But majority of times myself and Deepak(participant of Bangalore Photowalk 4.0) were together.

With Mahesh words in my mind, I looked out for interesting composition. In initial stretch till Brigade road, I was not so enthusiastic because I had covered the stretch in one of the previous Photowalks.

While thinking about compositions, the variety of BMTC's buses moving on the road amused me. Instantaneously, I decided make a collage including all types. Taking the snap of a bus individually turned to be bit challenging as I had to eliminate the surrounding vehicles. The resultant of my effort in below.

BMTC's variety

Before terminating the photowalk we go onto to a footbridge near Richmond Circle. From the footbridge it was quite interesting to capture people. walking below. First it was a different angle and second the people won't be conscious as we won't be easily visible to them. From the same place I got my snap of the day. It was of a lady walking on the road minding the yellow line.

Minding the yellow line

Asking one of my friends to my comment on the above photograph turned out into a big discussion about ethics related to photography.

My friend said
aa photo neevu thegediddu thappu...
aa vyakthi ge neevu photo thegeda bagge thiLide iralilla
[means: The photography is ethically wrong, because you don't have permission of that person]

I responded
Being part of photowalk event, I have the license to capture whatever is happening on the road.


I directed friend's comment about ethics to photowalk leader Mahesh. He responded with following points.
This is always a complex issue. My thought is this:
- You are not insulting or portraying the person in a negative way.
- You are not identifying the person by name, for which you will need permission.
- In fact, the message of this photo is not the person but the action performed.
Therefore the question of ethics does not arise. Please go ahead and post it.

5 comments:

  1. Nice one shande man, I liked the way you have camouflaged the blue biker in front of the blue bus :).

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  2. Hi Shande,

    Too many photowalks nowadays. What is the point in conducting so many?

    Raveesh

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  3. @ski: thanks .. but i didn't do in intentionally :)

    @raveesh: you are bit harsh. Many unofficially photo shoots have been going on in Bangalore, conducted almost every weekend. Regarding the benefits .. realize it by coming to one of the walks.

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  4. Well benefits could have been discussed in this blog too.

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  5. sure .. I will compose a dedicated post for that.

    ReplyDelete