Asian Photography Photowalk
Another Milestone for the Magazine
As a magazine Asian Photography has always been known to innovative and do new things. And as a first this year, the magazine started something new and unique and it was a runaway hit. From ideas on paper in the editorial meet to the execution of the same, everything at the Photowalk inititiave was different this time.
How was it unique?
The idea of a Photowalk wasn’t unique to the magazine as such initiatives had already been taken a few times in Kolkata during Artistique. But with this initiative the magazine wanted to do something different. How do we do something that has never been done before, we asked ourselves? After a lot of brainstorming, we figured out that Fashion photography classes have always been limited to the studio. Why is that? Why can’t we practically impart knowledge to people by actually shooting and teaching it?
The first step in conducting a photowalk is to understand its purpose. Why are we conducting a photowalk? Is it just publicity or do we have a different motive behind it? We decided it should be a knowledge sharing platform and the attendees should learn something from it. We needed a professional photographer who would impart them with knowledge. We zeroed in on one of the best fashion and lifestyle (two of the many feathers in his cap) photographer, Ritam Banerjee. He has shot everything from advertising, automobile, portraits, fashion, corporate, architecture & interiors, products, travel, industrial, photojournalism, food and more.
A review session for the Photowalk
As most photowalks go, people meet at a particular place, take photos from point A to point B and leave once the walk is over. We weren’t convinced with this idea. This is where the idea for a review session came in. What good are pictures and walks if you don’t get an idea on how you can improve and learn for the future? The review sessions were conducted at the Udaan School of Photography with the location figured to be in Bandra.
The Prizes
In order to encourage the participants, we decided to have some prizes for the best pictures of the walk. Sandisk and Golla were kind enough to lend us a helping hand to encourage the budding photographers with 128 GB SD cards and Designer Camera Bags respectively .
Any fashion shoot is incomplete without models. We were lucky enough to get three beautiful women for the walk. Tania Jena, Komal Rane and Neha Dinesh Anand agreed to join us for the walk. They were extremely professional and helped the budding photographers with their inputs as well! Even though the unforgiving Mumbai sun was posing problems, the models helped the photographers with their shoot.
The photowalk began just as any other with the photographers gathered at the starting point and we introduced Ritam Banerjee to them. Ritam asked the participants to first gel with the models. The photographers were a bit hesitant at first and it was the first step of the shoot. Any fashion shoot, Ritam explained, begins with getting to know the model well. Then the photographers were divided into three groups and asked to take one model each, along with them. They were given a time of 15 minutes and they had to shoot some beautiful pictures within that given time and meet Ritam about 200 meters away where the models would exchange groups and shoot with a new group. This went on till all the groups had shot with all the models. We were halfway on our route of the walk. Everyone gathered around Ritam and he explained that he noticed a lack of group coordination in the participants. So he decided to give another exercise. Each group got to shoot with one model and each member of the group would have 5 minutes to shoot the model while the others helped in the shoot. This continued for 20 minutes. At around 10:00 AM the photowalk came to an end with a group photo.
Now the next step was that the photographers had to reach Udaan School of Photography and submit three of their best images taken on that day before 11:00 AM which would be reviewed. The participants reached the premises where they were greeted in by Asian Photography team members.
“A big thank you to Asian Photography for the wonderful initiative and for taking photography and photographers to explore, express and experience the joy of shooting even more” – Ritam Banerjee
The Editor of Asian Photography, Bhavya Desai joined in on the review session along with Ritam Banerjee who shared their expertise to help the photographers through the session. Bhavya explained how the inception of the photowalk idea began and also announced that each participant would receive one complete year’s e-subscription of the magazine! Ritam further spoke about the nuances of fashion photography, importance of teamwork and so on while the participants listened attentively. The participants got a chance to ask questions and the models joined in too!
At the end of the session the winning participants were chosen by Bhavya Desai and Ritam Banerjee. The winners then received the goodies and were given a chance to speak in front of the other participants. The photographers who received prizes were Sudhanshu Sawate, Kinjal Padaya, Garv Srivastav, Mohit Shigvan, Suryansh Tripathi and Bhavika Doulatani.
The day came to an end with all participants having learned a lot from the event while taking back memories and a whole lot of enthusiasm expressing their intent to join in on the next photowalk that the magazine organizes.