Visuals Won’t Fade Way: Dr. Tabeenah Anjum Qureshi
By Ayan Shyam Roy Kolkata: The 9th day of #MediaNext, is focused on the theme “Photography in Digital Times” with eminent speakers in the panel. One of such speakers is Dr. Tabeenah Anjum Qureshi. She is a journalist and an eminent visual storyteller. Born and brought up in Kashmir, she pursued her master’s and Ph.D. in
By Ayan Shyam Roy
Kolkata: The 9th day of #MediaNext, is focused on the theme “Photography in Digital Times” with eminent speakers in the panel. One of such speakers is Dr. Tabeenah Anjum Qureshi. She is a journalist and an eminent visual storyteller. Born and brought up in Kashmir, she pursued her master’s and Ph.D. in Jaipur. According to her, Jaipur is her second home. She followed her dream for photography and also won the National award in photography conferred by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India. She is also a recipient of Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh II Award (2017) for excellence in photography. The camera is her fellow companion and would carry it as she ventures out. She has reported for Deccan Herald, Rajasthan Patrika, DNA newspaper.
#Medianext 2020 is being organized by the Kolkata Based Adamas University in association with Sharda University, Birla Global University, DME, AIMEC, Lok Sammad Sanstha, Exchange4Media, ABP Education and IndiaReal.in, The mega conclave is being organized over a period of 10 days from June 1, 2020, to June 10, 2020. Each day of the conclave focuses on one specialized domain of the Media and Entertainment (M&E) industry and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on that specific domain.
Dr. Tabeenah Anjum Qureshi explained the importance of visuals in times of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some of the visuals may also haunt us. She also said that visual media is the strongest media in times of Covid-19 pandemic besides print media. During this lockdown period, people had seen many such visuals through traditional or social media, but photographers remained anonymous many times. Photographs or visuals are very important and even powerful tools to give any message. One amazing click posted on social media reaches hundreds of thousands of people within a short period of time, and people across the world get to know about it.
Understanding the power of picture or visual is very important as rightfully quotes by Dr. Tabeenah Anjum Qureshi that “Visuals won’t fade away.” She also said that the photojournalist community is dealing with a lot of uncertainty, such as safety concerns and many more.
Dr. Tabeenah Anjum Qureshi said that” Most journalists who tested positive were among the people suffering from the pandemic Covid-19 and among all, most affected were the photographers in the particular field; They took it as their responsibility for covering every moment available, as the people should be made aware of the effects of Covid-19.”
Dr. Qureshi stated some precautionary measures towards photojournalists on the field regarding implementing the initiative of social distancing and maintaining least contact with the subject, avoiding the crowded place. Using a good lens can help them stay away from the affected while capturing good snaps of the subject.
Dr. Qureshi further showed some more visuals on the impact of Covid-19 and subsequent lockdown in India. The first visual was of a middle-aged woman getting tested by a health worker with an infrared thermometer. The next image was of a man on whom doctors performed a swab test in a newly installed sample kiosk. There were visuals of a swab test in Dharavi, Mumbai. She explained the importance of this visual, depending on the fact that Dharavi has turned out to be a big hotspot of Covid-19. The next one is a perfect visual of a health-worker scanning a resident with an infrared thermometer to check her temperature in New Delhi. Then there are images that showed the health-workers enters a residential area of Mumbai on April 20, 2020, to do random testing to understand the spread of the coronavirus in this lockdown.
Dr. Qureshi also showed visuals of a family creating sound with utensils during the “Janata Curfew Thali Bajao and Tali Bajao” episode. She explained how this made the people connected and motivating the health officials. Through the next visual image, she showed the picture of Kolkata during the lockdown period that once glittered with people on its roads, now has deserted, empty streets with hardly any people. Then there was this impeccable photograph that shows a bride and groom in their traditional wear on the occasion of their wedding, wearing masks to avoid any exposure to Covid-19.
Then there were numerous photographs depicting the plight of the migrant workers and their families. It portrays the journey of migrants on their foot in a long queue without proper food and supplies but maintaining the initiatives of social distancing in the hope of returning to their homes to meet their loved ones. She tried to cover all aspects of life in lockdown with visuals and had shown some compelling images of wild animals roaming in highways, traffic crossings without any fear of being harmed.
Dr. Tabeenah Anjum Qureshi explained an incident where there were four women she met on the road. When she heard their stories, she found that they had three things in common:
– They are mothers,
– They are resilient,
– They are migrants.
Their destinations were far away, yet they braved the journey on foot for their children’s sake.
In the end, Dr. Qureshi showed some silver lining visuals during the time of COVID, which depicts that nature is functioning in its’ rhythm amid lockdown, pandemic, and human plights.
ooo
Comment List