We had a guest mentor today – Vineeth Pradhan from https://tollfreeroad.in , a passionate & professional landscape photographer. He shared his expertise on some very fascinating photography concepts. After a brief introduction and lesson in theory, he gave us our first assignment: to capture our subject within a frame. The learners were free to use cameras of either professional calibre or smartphone standards, but the outcome had to be presented within ten shots. So, we set out on our experiments. We compelled our minds to seek out the frames that were concealed beneath the everyday guises of our environment. The challenge was exciting and fruitful. We returned to class to share our findings and imagination, and received constructive feedback as well as tips on how to enhance our chosen pictures for future ventures.

Our second task was to capture “the odd one out” – an anomaly from an organized and uniform setting. We were free to create our own scene to illustrate our understanding of this concept. Many of us did just that and did quite well. The chosen photographs were passed around to be studied and to gain insight on the different ways one could form “the odd one out” scenario.

Vineeth then showcased his own work on two large canvas prints of incredibly impressive natural scenery. One photograph depicted a grove of lime green trees reaching towards an azure sky. The contrast was simply stunning. The other portrayed a waterfall gushing down forest rocks. Softness and hardness, movement and stillness, black and white – it illustrated multiple layers of contrast of the elements – an inspiring representation of the duality of nature. Vineeth proceeded to explain how he captured those moments and his inspiration for producing such photographs.

After a brief break, he set us on our last mission for the day: to capture three emotions – anger, joy and surprise – in our photographs. We could enact and arrange our scenarios to bring each emotion into effect, however we had to capture three photographs of each emotion and present it by the end of the day. Through this exercise we learned that though we knew those emotions so well, it could be quite a challenge to bring forth in the form of a picture. Nevertheless, we persevered.

In the end, photography taught us how to have fun, how to bring beauty to the ordinary, how to focus on what matters and how to value different perspectives. Also, if things don’t work out, we can always take another shot.

Above all, the camera became instrumental in teaching us how to really see things without a camera.

Mentor @ Skills Beyond Education

Apprentice Education Program