I was excited to attend this event as it would showcase work of lensman across Gujarat and I would get chance to meet photography stalwarts like Vivek Desai, Dr Urvish Joshi, Divyesh Sejpal, and Ketan Modi.
When I reached there, only 15-20 people were there...award ceremony started....and guess what who was present there? Pranlal Patel (needs any intro?), Jitendra Desai (father of Vivek Desai, I could relate to him as he had translated Short Stories of Tolstoy in Gujarat) and 2 other elderly gentlemen whose names I don't remember...
good thing about certificate is that the award winning pic, photographers intro & profile pic were included in the certificate...good idea..
Divyesh Sejpal has an amazing profile, Dr. Urvish is barely in his 30s or may be late 20s, contrary to my assumption of being in mid forties :) I saw Dr. Urvish's photos in Amdabad Rocks and like his style since the.....National Geography kind of pics and color result....man I want to master this technique...
About entries.....very good work by some....some average and mundane pics.....and couple of inappropriate pics....that of a crying lady next to a corps of man probably her husband-insensitive! ( my subjective feeling)
I saw pics of some know names Paras Shah, Sonali Dalal, and Bhumika Bhavsar ....nice snaps by them all....
The best thing was, and probably life time opportunity, was to meet Pranlal Patel! He is 102 years young, old is not applicable to him! Unbelievable!!! He looks barely 80-85...by that standard I should look like 10-12 yrs kid lol......He spoke to me....ask about my left hand bandage (advantage you see) with genuine sympathy and added "traffic vadhi gayo che pan traffic sense ghati che". Meeting him was such a pleasant experience.....he looked like a living slice of history....Urvish Kothari can share lots of amazing things about him.
Good work by Ketan Modi (guess he lives at walking distance from my house...learned from his card), volunteers and Manav trust....may be next time I will also participate :)
