A two-day national photo exhibition “Deep Focus”, which opened on Monday at the Manipur University in Imphal West, gave visitors thrilling trips down memory lane of the 60's and 70's.
Organised by the Mass Communication department, MU, Deep Focus is the first of its kind national photo exhibition and acts as an archive through which the timeline of Manipur gets back to the days with the display of photographs almost a century old.
One will realise that the event is not a mere photo exhibition but an exhibition of lifestyle of the 60's, 70's and years before that. Besides, it displays varieties of vintage cameras, vintage photo printing equipment that were in use before the digital age.
Photographers from across the country were given a platform for both the professional and phpto enthusiasts to display their work as ways of providing a space beyond digital for the creators to showcase their photography and deliver their message.
It may be mentioned that photographers and photo enthusiasts from West Bengal, Punjab, Assam, New Delhi, Chandigarh, Meghalaya, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Nagaland, Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Sikkim and Manipur submitted over 200 photos for the exhibition.
However, only around 100 photographs, after being curated, were selected by the juries for display at the exhibition.
Workshops was taken by resource persons and On-Spot Photography Competition were also organised as a part of the exhibition.
Speaking at the inaugural session, HoD of Mass Communication, RK Lilapati said the camera, as a scientific instrument, has made contribution in the development of and refinement of arts and human sensibilities.
It has performed its role in the development and dissemination of material culture, she added.
Talking on the essence of photography, Lilapati said photography, in its critical analysis, is regarded as a realist representation of an object, an automatic record of reality which is treated as historic sources on culture, politics and society at a given point of time.
Photographs have always been acting as a record keeper or an archive since its inventions, she said, adding that "the exhibition is in fact a gala of creative outputs of many photo enthusiasts from across the country".
The inaugural programme was also attended by eminent filmmaker M Romi Meitei and dean School of Social Science Prof S Mangi among others.
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