Awantipora, Dec 11: To continue with its efforts for inculcating practical knowledge within the students and push for skill-based teaching-learning mechanism, the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication (DJMC), Islamic University of Science and Technology (IUST) on Monday held a one-day Photography Workshop with award-winning documentary photographer and educator, Showkat Nanda, who presently works for The New York Times as a freelance photographer.
During the day-long workshop, noted photojournalist Showkat Nanda besides training the journalism students about the technical and aesthetic nuances of photography, exposed them to the contemporary trends in the field.
During his introductory speech, Showkat Nanda advised the students to aim for becoming brilliant storytellers through the medium of photography and look for meaningful and human-interest stories. Throughout the workshop, he persistently advised the students to put their souls into work while narrating visual stories through their photographs.
“Visuals have a deep significance in our daily lives and a photojournalist must adopt a humanistic approach towards narrating a story through visuals to their audience. Moreover, how you contextualize your visual stories is very important”, he added.
While demonstrating the need to be closer to the subject in news photography, Nanda said, “We must always strive to develop a personal connection with the visual story we are telling and if you don’t know the subject in your frame well enough, you don’t have any right to cover the subject at first place”
In the workshop which continued for the whole day, Nanda trained the students about fundamental technical aspects of photography which included composition, framing and lighting. Besides, the basic elements in photography, the nuances of visual language were among the major themes of the workshop.
The session moderator, Sr. Assistant Professor of DJMC , Dr. Monisa Qadiri, while introducing the resource person expressed the importance of the workshop which according to her was a great opportunity for the aspiring photojournalists to learn about art and elements of photography for visual storytelling.
In his vote of thanks, the Head of the Department, DJMC Dr. Mujeeb Liyakat while appreciating the enlightening day-long session, expressed the importance of such workshops. Dr. Mujeeb while expressing his views about the power of visual language in mass media said, “Photography or the visual language are fundamentally associated with philosophic paradigms and theories of semiotics. Photography as an art include denotation as the first order of signification i,e what is photographed and the connotation as a second order of signification tells us how it is photographed”.
Dr. Mujeeb who himself specializes in semiotic studies invoked semiotician Ronald Barthes ideas and advised the aspiring photojournalists to understand his concepts; studium which is political, linguistic, and cultural interpretation of a photograph and punctum, which deals with emotional, personal and touching details in a photograph.
During practical demonstrations, Showkat Nanda showcased his award-winning work and other photo series to the participants. The day-long workshop was attended by both the current semester students, scholars and ex-students of the department. DJMC faculty members, Dr. Arif Nadaf, Dr. Sayar Ahmad Mir and Dr. Tawseef Majeed also participated in the workshop.