Ready, steady, click! Learning about skills and techniques from photography pros
The present era of smartphones, where each of us keeps clicking pictures on-the-go, has made photography a part of our everyday life. Mobile photography is popular among all of us, especially among kids. Keeping this in mind, HT School, recently organised a photography workshop called Shutterbug. It was held on 26 April at HT House, Delhi from 9 AM to 2 PM , Delhi. The session, conducted by Paroma Mukherjee, Head, National Photo Desk, Hindustan Times, was attended by students of Classes VIII-XII from schools like Springdales School, Pusa Road; ASN Sr. Sec. School, Mayur Vihar -1, and The Paras World School, Gurugram. Apart from a participation certificate. a selected photo essay assignment would get a chance to be featured in the Hindustan Times student edition.
Mukherjee had a great time interacting with this young, well-informed and enthusiastic bunch of students.
Sharing her thoughts, Mukherjee said, “Kids were already familiar with mobile phone photography and various camera apps. Interestingly, they didn’t discuss about taking selfies on their smartphones. Instead, they were keen on exploring things around them in the city. They were also quite proactive in asking me different questions which I liked the most.”
The students also found the session engaging and enlightening.
Describing her experience at this workshop, Navya Barsiwal, Class XII student from Springdales School, Pusa Road, said, “I am glad to have attended this informative workshop by HT School where I learnt about consent in photography and how ethical photography works.”
What was taught at the workshop?
It was aimed at making the middle and high schoolers understand the nuances of photography and how it has made its way in our smartphone cameras through the decades.
Mukherjee began by talking about the first leap in the mainstream digital space for Instagram, a free photo and video sharing app available on iPhone and Android, back in 2010.
She further expounded on Instagram’s journey from then to now and what that has meant for in-phone cameras as opposed to external apps for photography.
Talks on different kinds of zoom lenses available in smartphone cameras and what the portrait mode essentially does to the image in terms of depth of field were the other topics that she elaborated on.
Mukherjee also showed the students a few photographs which could be edited on photography apps like Hipstamatic, Instagram and Adobe Lightroom apps in real time.
In this workshop, two photo books by acclaimed photographers and visual artists, Ritesh Uttamchandani and Sanjeev Saith, were also discussed. All the pictures in these books were captured through smartphone cameras. Storytelling and narrative drove the works of both the artists.
In the next segment, Mukherjee touched upon street photography, including the importance of ethics in clicking photos in any space, especially news photography and when shooting minors. The session also included discussion about basic photo filters and lighting techniques that could be employed using easily available props and small torch lights.