By Indrani Hazra
Kolkata: Some quotes seem to be written for certain people. As Ansam Adam’s “You don’t take a photograph, you Make it”, look so appropriate with Rajeev Bhatt, a Senior Special News Photojournalist of THE HINDU. On June 9, Tuesday, he shared his experience and knowledge at the #MediaNext2020 conclave on the topic of photojournalism. He was the third speaker of the 9th day of the online webinar.
#MediaNext 2020 is being organized by Kolkata- based Adamas University in association with ShardaUniversity, Birla Global University, DME, AIMEC, Look SamvadSansthan, Exchange4media, ABP Education and IndiaReal.in, In the mega conclave is being organized for ten days from June 1,202O to June 10, 2020. Each of conclaves focused on the specialized domain of the media and entertainment (M&E) industry along with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on that specific domain.
Rajeev Bhatt is an eminent Photojournalist of THE HINDU. He has over 30 years of experience in the field of photojournalism, covering major National and International News and Sports events in India and Abroad. Bhatt has covered 16th Commonwealth Games in Malaysia, 12th Asian Athletics Championships in Japan, and 14th Asian Athletics Championships in Sri Lanka.
He started his presentation by showing some of his work and explained each Photographs in details that he had captured at different times and in different situations. He was also discussing the relevance, importance and background of those photos. He had shown photographs of Kashmir insurgency, where he explained his personal experience of what difficulties he had faced to cover it as a photojournalist. He explained how he could captured one of the encounters between Militants and Security forces, in absence of protecting Bullet Proof Jacket and Helmet which was being used by other foreign agency photojournalists at Srinagar in 2002. Then he showed some visuals of the Gujarat riot in 2002, taken by him, which was used as cover page of the Frontline, News Magazine. Bhatt also showed a series of three photographs in continuity, taken by him in black and white of a cow hit by a car in the middle of the road, in 1994 at Delhi. After it got published in The Hindu Newspaper, next day a foreign Agency, AFP, France sourced and released it Worldwide.
Bhatt showed some images of politically prominent figures like Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee at different times during their election campaign. He also showed Photo Feature on human interest stories like how people of “Ghoramara Island” a part of Sundarbans a mangrove area in the delta formed by confluence of the rivers, Ganges, Brahamputra and Meghna in Bay of Bengal, ferry in boats for 40 minutes to get connected with the mainland. The island which has got about 4000 inhabitants, is regularly getting eroded due to force of water. Bhatt expressed his concern about the uncertainty of the life and property of inhabitants on the island, which might be lost in the sea forever within the next 25 years. He has well documented the difficulties of people on the island to commute from there to the mainland in series of photo feature through his lens and has shared it with the students and budding photographers. He wanted to focus on how Environmental changes creating severe distress in the life of people in this area.
Bhatt had presented some of his work during the post-cyclone “Amphan” period in the South 24 Parganas in Sunderban areas, which are mostly devastated. During this time, he had captured the life of farmers in that area, which is affected badly due to the cyclone “Amphan.” The saline water further destroyed their cereal cultivation, which made their life even more miserable. The audience was enthralled through the visuals when he narrated the story behind the photo taken by him.
Bhatt presented some of his assignment visuals for fashion photography to the audiences. He shared the images of Wills and Lakme Fashion Weeks which he covered for many years.. Bhatt is well known Sports Photographer who had covered many National and international Sports events in India and Abroad which he had shown to the audiences. He also explained which Telephoto Lenses are used to shoot Sporting events like Cricket, Athletics, Hockey, Football, Badminton and Formula 1 Races.
Bhatt talked about photography as a skilled profession. The online photo storytelling is flourishing even during the pandemic. Hence, according to him, one should not bother about the market because photographers never go out of demand. But at the same time, the number of photographers is increasing daily. So, photographers should focus more on their quality of work. He added that the photo has to be an idea, a vision, and imagination what the photographer wants to show people which cannot be described even in Thousands of Words.
Bhatt’s session was followed by audience interaction, where he was asked if photo-editing software is essential in photography. Bhatt replied to it in a very different fashion, saying that it is important to know how to enhance the quality of an image without changing the originality of photographs. He advised students and budding photographers to get trained in professional schools and have degrees. He also agreed that without knowing the basics of photography, an online course on photography is not useful. He further suggested, “equipment does not matter, but what is more important is to know how to use the tools.” For that, one should have to visit colleges and take professional training in photography to brush-up their skills. He said, “you first have to be a Journalist to be a Photojournalist” to know the nuances of Photography.
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