Focus, The Photography Society of Ramjas College successfully hosted its first annual fest Focus’13 on the 5th and 6th of March, 2013. The event had a plethora of events, appealing to the camera savvy people of all kinds. Students from all over the university participated in the events and won many prizes. The fest had events panning out over the two days and also involved online events, which was a novelty and attracted huge participation.
The first day started off with the event ‘Click It’. This event required students to take photos based on Pre-set themes within a time limit of two hours. The themes allotted were ‘Capitalism’ and ‘Shadows’, carefully chosen to strike a balance between narrowing the participant’s choices while leaving an ample scope for creative expression. The winner under the first theme was Rishabh Nahil of Ramjas College, and the winner under the other theme was Chirag Joshi of Law Faculty. The photos were judged by the eminent photographer Sundeep Bali.
The biggest event of the day for young photography enthusiasts was the seminar by Umesh Mehta, a renowned photographer, and Bikash Das, the founder of the Delhi School of Photography, enlightening everyone on the nitty-gritty’s and intricacies of photography.
The second day offered another slew of exciting events to the delight of young photographers. The first event was the 'Photoexpress', an event to test the photographic skill and creativity at the same time. For this event participants had to take a photograph based on an assigned theme and follow it up with a short story such that the photo would contain the essence of the story. The event was won by Surbhi Girdhar of Maitreyi College and judged by Saptarishi Roy.
Finally, the day closed with a workshop by some experts from the popular photographic tools and accessories manufacturer Nikon, which also was sponsoring the fest.
Perhaps the most important and well acclaimed events of the fest were online. These included ‘Chal-chitra’, a short-film making contest and ‘Captured’, an online photography event. Chal-chitra, the short-film making contest required participants to form groups of not more than 3 members and create films not exceeding a 10 minute time limit. Participants could choose their own theme. The top five entries were showcased for public viewing. The event was judged by Rahul Roy.
The 1st prize was bagged by Priyali Soota of Venkateshwara College, the second by Prachi Chhabra of JMC and the third by Fairooz Nazar of Hansraj College. The other event was ‘Captured’ which was divided into two events. One was to be judged through Facebook ‘Likes’ and the other to be judged by a panel of judges. The winners were:
(1) CAPTURED-I
On the basis of LIKES:
1st Prize: Ilina, Hindu College
2nd Prize: Monalisha, Gargi College
On the basis of judgement by Saptarshi Roy:
1st Prize: Harshit Walia, Amity School of Communication
2nd Priza: Ujjwal Vanvari, Triveni Kala Sangam and SOL, DU.
(2) CAPTURED-II
Entries judged by Sundeep Bali
1st Prize: Mark, St. Stephens College
2nd Prize: Ujjwal, SOL, Delhi University
3rd Prize: Aurobindo, ANDC
While the above events were for photography enthusiasts, a Photography Exhibition was also put all throughout the two-day event for the non-participating students. The exhibition put up included photographs by faculty members, students and society members. There was also the PhotoBooth where students could use crazy props and get funny and memorable pictures of them and their friends. Finally, there was the ‘Caption-It’ competition as a part of the exhibition in which students could assign captions to certain photographs, and the best were to be awarded. The winners were the following:
Day 1: Arundhati, Swati Pathak, Sunanda, Ram Krishna, Swati
Day 2: Praveen Shukla, Madhu Bansal, Rajat Garg, Saptarshi Roy, Akash Singh.
A newbie in the elite group of ECA societies, Focus has proved its potential with its hugely successful fest Focus’13. It’s president, Abhinav Kakkar, who was also responsible for this institution, was the man behind this success. Photography has a rapidly increasing following amongst youth and Focus has been instrumental for spreading it further.
Report by krishna Prasanth
Edited by Ishaan Malhotra
Social Editing & Compilation by Deepesh Mishra
