“This is the perfect time for photography,” says Iqbal Mohamed, Founder of Light and Life Academy (LLA), Lovedale, Nilgiris. “It is the right time to cultivate vision,” he indicates pollution-free light and the noise-free environment that is so conducive to focus and good photography. He himself is discovering new ways of approaching subjects indoors and experimenting with light and angles and encourages other photography-buffs to do the same. "I am seeing new and exciting image possibilities even in the most ordinary situations. I see myself reaching a higher level of sensitivity towards mankind. I anticipate that every one of us will be a better and more sensitive image maker! And the collective power of our images will move the world. There is always light outside the shadow.”
In order to enable them to create those powerful images, Iqbal offers photography-buffs the Get Creative With Photography Basic course, free of charge. The tutorials will cover: Exposure, Shutter, Lenses and Aperture, Colour, Light and Composition.
Iqbal Mohamed, Founder of Light and Life Academy, Lovedale, Nilgiris
The Lockdown Offer is called ‘The Get Creative With Photography’ Basic Course that has 10 video tutorials covering 10 modules. “The fundamentals of photography are covered in it. They should give you a better understanding of photography and at the end of the course, you will notice a difference in how you approach photography,” assures Iqbal.
He says as people are unable to go out, this would be a good time to take time over the videos, watch them any number of times, digest the contents, mull over them and list out the things they will photographs once the lockdown is lifted.
The programme is available in nine Indian languages (Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Tamil and Telugu) besides English. The content will be available till May 31. Register free on www.llaonline.in
For those who want to continue after the basic course, LLA offers the Get Creative With Photography Advanced. There is a special offer for those enrolling for it before 31 of May. The course fee of ₹10,000 will be available to them at ₹5,000.
LLA engages with its Instagram followers through a series of activities called My Quaroutine With LLA (starting today) . “The lockdown need not come in the way of creativity,” says Iqbal, who presents interesting tasks and assignments for four weeks. This was after LLA saw an encouraging response by the followers of LLA on Instagram for another of its recently concluded series called Shoot from Home with LLA. Starting today, for the next four weeks, more photography-based activities will unfold. To take part, all you have to do is follow @lightandlifeacademy on Instagram.
The activity for week one (that is open for submission till April 25) is “That one special Picture”. People are encouraged to submit any number of photographs with a few words on why these impressed them. To give participants an idea, Iqbal himself has posted three pictures of Ansel Adams, taken in 1939, 1946 and 1950 respectively that made him decide he wanted to be a professional photographer. “It was in 1983,” recalls Iqbal. Photography was to him, till then, a hobby. But these pictures changed all that. He says, as he studied Ansel Adam’s photographs, he felt he was transported to the scene the photographer had captured with his camera. “I knew then, that I too wanted to learn how to transport people to different places through photography. The joy I felt looking at these pictures, that’s the joy I wanted to spread.”
‘Colour your Quaroutine’ is the second week’s challenge where the theme is colour-based and on each day of the week participants will have to upload a picture championing the particular colour specified.
In the third week, each day will have a photograph put up by Iqbal and one has to caption the pictures. In the final week, the theme is the intriguing ‘Alphabets at home!’ and you will have to find out what that is as the activity progresses.
To know more, call 9487517750 or 8939119886; email prahaladm@llacademy.org or visit www.llacademy.org
