issue_01 / SEPTEMBER 2018
Alfred, Arun, Lakshmi ( front), Asha, Deepa and Lavkush at the skatepark.
Unknown boy.
the 11 children in his class – a mix of Yadav and Adivasi – may be wary of the unfamiliar device, Prabhu encouraged them to play with a couple of digicams on the very first day itself, to overcome any fear. This was the first time Prabhu was teaching photography to children, so he decided to keep things simple. He used local slang to explain concepts: headroom, a key element in composition, became khopdi-fasla . In order to help with framing, Prabhu asked
the children to draw images of what they wanted to photograph. They made rough sketches of flowers, skating tricks and the landscape. After the afternoon class ended, Prabhu asked his students to take five pictures each and report to him. While most returned with photographs of flowers, skates and trees, one had clicked five portraits. Moved by the precise framing and natural eye for portrait photography, Prabhu asked the child, Sepi to photograph everybody in his village.
Sepi says everyone praised the first five photos he took. “They said, ‘He is very talented, he will do something great,’” he recollected. The other children and the volunteers at the skatepark, where Prabhu was conducting his classes, were sceptical that a 13year old would have the dedication to see the assignment through. But he returned in the evening with around 200 photos in his silver digicam, of the “aadmi log” from the 130-plus houses in the village. “No one really taught me how to click humans, it just came to me,” he said. “I wanted to shoot people, and I did.”
Sepi, who studies in class eight, is yet to decide what he will become when he grows up. For now he is happy taking photographs. “I like the zoom thing in the camera,” he said. “It is so good: if you rotate it, you can see a person who is standing far from you clearly and vice-versa. It is magical.” Editor’s note: Meanwhile Sepi is invited to Germany to take photography classes. He is already applying for his passport.
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