Lens view of ‘news history’

Rare photographs that appeared in newspapers on display at the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Art Gallery in Kozhikode. The exhibition will conclude on May 31.

May 28, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 08:40 am IST - Kozhikode:

Athlete and sports coach P.T. Usha and activist K. Ajitha viewing an exhibition of news photographs jointly inaugurated by them. The event was organised as part of the State convention of the Senior Journalists Forum in Kozhikode on Wednesday.

Athlete and sports coach P.T. Usha and activist K. Ajitha viewing an exhibition of news photographs jointly inaugurated by them. The event was organised as part of the State convention of the Senior Journalists Forum in Kozhikode on Wednesday.

No one can pass the aisles of the Kerala Lalithakala Akademi Art Gallery in Kozhikode without an occasional gasp and a whistle of wonder.

Rare photographs that have appeared in newspapers in the State are on display at the art gallery now. These are photographs that have been landmarks in the history of news photography in Kerala, clicked by eminent photographers using diverse equipment.

The display ranges from that of the old Kozhikode Collectorate at Mananchira in the 1950s to lifelike shots from Nepal during the recent earthquake.

Several award-winning photographs such as the one that bagged a State award in 1990 of a mother walking out of a hospital with her sick baby while the doctors were on strike and the one showing the grim picture of granite quarries in the State are noteworthy.

There are some photographs of political significance like the one of activist K. Ajitha when she was arrested as a Naxalite at the age of 19.

A photograph taken in a box camera of a scavenger woman and another of nude Adivasis of Nilambur invoke curiosity.

Poignant frames

Some like the one of Kumaran Master, an endosulphan victim, and that of a bus full of passengers being lifted out of a river in Karnataka, are poignant ones. Then, there are quite a number of shots on the lighter side of life as well.

The exhibition is being organised as part of the fourth State convention of the Senior Journalists’ Forum - Kerala.

Inaugurating the exhibition on Wednesday, K.Ajitha said she was proud to be known both as a Naxalite and a feminist and that the two phases in her life were connected.

Athlete P.T. Usha, the co-inaugurator, noted that each photograph had a story behind it. The exhibition will conclude on May 31.

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