They heard, touched and clicked

CHANDIGARH: The thought of exploring photography seemed next to impossible for this group of blind students from

Bengal

, who had never touched a camera in their life. An avenue to a new perspective of the world around opened up for them with the help of Padmaja and Chander. Today, the pictures clicked by these students are being exhibited at different places.

'Sounds', an exhibition of photographs by five blind young photographers was inaugurated at Government Museum and

Art Gallery

on Friday and will end on August 14. The exhibition has been organized by

Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi

as part of their Art for Society initiative.

All pictures displayed at the exhibition were clicked on the basis of sound heard by the photographer while clicking. While someone clicked a moving cycle, someone clicked the hustle and bustle of a market. “Even a thought of doing so had never crossed our minds,” the students said. “When I was initially told about a photography workshop, I was laughing inside. But I eventually found a new hobby after it started,” said Raj Kumar, who was a part of the workshop and is a final year student of

Bengali Literature

.

“We were given a wooden frame and through it we were taught how to keep the camera straight, and how to make a frame using the sense of touch. The photographs we clicked were based on sounds we heard, objects we touched and description given. We used to go to different places like railway station, parks, market areas and temples, where we were described the scene and were free to click based on any sound that we liked,” shared Tinku Hazra, another final year student, who was a part of the workshop.

The students wished to continue photography forever. “I don’t think we can take it up professionally with no friendly equipments in market except for a few mobile applications. But, we will continue clicking pictures as a hobby. Also, this will help us when we go somewhere and hear some sounds but get no description of it. Once we are home we can get the description by showing the picture,” said Phani Paul, a second year student.

The pictures on display were clicked by Anjan Sharen, Milan Sharma, Phani Paul, Tinku Hazra and Dulaal Chand Roy. Talking about why they thought of such a workshop, Padmaja said, “I was inspired after I saw a movie, Ship of Thesis, which had a character of a blind photographer. Since then I wanted to explore blind photography. So, we read a lot about various visually impaired people, who have lived inspiring lives. We wanted to understand their ways of working, how they see things and how they think”