Sport is the focal point through which amateur and semi-professional photographers narrate stories of people, culture, aspirations and disappointments. The eyes of these photographers scan streets of 50 nations to capture a sport as it unfolds, from street side football to bull race and boat race.
A lot happens away from the sporting arena as well. We see a player in a shower, captured by Gilberto Perin Santana do Livramento, in Brazil. The 2010 photograph highlights the significance of what ‘going to shower’ stands for in Brazilian football. It denotes that a player is expelled and must retire to the locker room. We get glimpses of women wrestlers in Kathmandu, synchronised swimming in New Zealand, a boat race in South Pacific islands of Vanuatu, a group of boys arriving at a pyramid formation ‘Mahakhamb’ using yoga asanas in Pune. The photographs also show the work put in by sportsmen and women, away from the public eye.Stephanie Ephraim’s image ‘Suffer alone, to win together’ shows a sportsman sweating it out in the gym. Elsewhere, a young boy clad in traditional clothes plays football on the streets of Ukraine, signifying a blend of tradition and modernity in the photograph by Oksana Kholiavchenko. The boy, inspired by Andriy Shevchenko inspires him, is hooked to the game.
‘Objectif Sport’ was the theme for the sixth International Photography Contest mooted by Alliance Francaise and from the entries, a jury in Paris selected 44 photographs that will tour 13 cities in India.
Dar’ya Shara, an Argentinian photographer who was chosen for the first prize, offers a ringside view of gymnastics through a stylised shot of a gymnast gearing up for action. Hyderabad-based Saurabh Chatterjee and Mohammad Reazuddin of Lahore were chosen in the second place and Sergey Kolyaskin of Russia won the third spot.
Two of Saurabh’s photographs featured at the exhibition highlight lesser known traditional sports. In the image titled ‘Playing with policewoman’, he captures a policewoman partaking in Phugdi dance during Pandharpur Wari, in 2014. He also presents an arresting image of horses in motion with a pan shot, which nearly recreates the atmosphere of an image from a period, action film.
Objectif Sport is on view at Alliance Francaise till October 9.
