Another Holy Week gone, a time of forgiveness and new life and fresh commitment, as well as a poignant new reminder that some day because of Resurrection Day, I will be reunited with lost loved ones. My thoughts were specially with Parteii this year - you are so deeply missed, my friend.
~~~
On a happier note, I had been meaning to post these earlier but with one thing after another, I completely fogged out. Earlier last month, there was another photo exhibition, this time with a theme, albeit a rather open one - My Mizoram. I had wanted to send in a picture of a church captured within a wineglass which I figure epitomises Mizoram best. After all these are the two most dominant issues here - the Church and alcohol, both with their own teams of highly vociferous supporters. But to my total frustration, I just couldn't get the picture I wanted - my skills just not good enough to translate into digitised form what was in my mind's eye. In the end, without any great enthusiasm I sent in a couple of pictures and surprise, surprise, one of them actually sold again! And yes, a bird picture again, this time of a red-vented bulbul that remained perched atop a tree in our garden for ages on the evening of Parteii's funeral.
I felt so emotional about having clinched a sale again, despite being such a know-nothing about photography in the first place, I thought I'd return the favour and purchase one of the pictures myself. And this is the one I picked.
Taken by TZa, I can see now that the black and white layout is actually a better option for an exhibit considering the local guys don't do colour printing of large photos all that well. I love the arid starkness of the landscape with the rundown tin shack, the giraffe-necked tree with leaves clumped impossibly out of reach at the very top, the barren earth littered with dry leaves and twigs, and the lone female figure seemingly emerging out of the wasted background like a Venus rising out of the sea. Haven't actually got it framed it yet but it's definitely slated to grace my walls very shortly.
Congrats! It must feel like a huge achievement to sell one's work, confirms you as an artist I suppose. The picture you bought is also beautiful. Your idea of a church within a wineglass would have won you a prize. I've become quite the anti-alcoholic recently. Maybe you can write a post on it and I'll vent my angst on it...
ReplyDeleteThanks, dear diary, but since I know zilch about cam tech I feel a bit of a fraud when people buy my pictures (yeah yeah, repeat when people buy my pictures :D)If anything, it makes me feel like a con-artist! An anti-alcohol post, hmmmm now that's food for thought.
ReplyDeleteCongrats! It must've taken loads of patience to get that perfect shot. I really must see these exhibits again. Ive been meaning to, but Im playing the hermit these days. Once upon a time I attended every art, photography or book fair that hit town. I feel very stagnant.
ReplyDeleteGreat concept-the church- wineglass thing. A nalh dawn nen2, please, keep at it :D
Thank you! And don't worry, stagnating is one among many signs of maturity :p And the church-wineglass thing, sigh. I borrowed a friend's husband's wineglass - big, well rounded and very finely made but obviously I couldn't hang on to it forever so I had to return it. Apart from the cam tech skills, I need to find a nice photo-friendly glass of my own. Huiss, problems problems..
ReplyDeleteI sava pic te chu nalh reuh e. Chuan i photo lei khi engemaw ti takin lung a ti leng reuh. Ka lo ngaihtuah daih chu, some of the photos surely must have been digitally altered, what was done regarding that? An exhibit ve tho awm sia...
ReplyDeleteFirst things first, ambs, this wasn't a competition, just an exhibit for amateurs, and the 'let's stroll in for a dekho crowd' merely voted for their favourite. And believe you me, the majority knew next to nothing about photography. So of course the photos were all digitally altered. What ever gave you the idea they weren't? In this day and age of easy photo editing, very few ppl don't work their photos over. Exposure, contrast, colour - these are the main areas where we iron out minor kinks. My two sparrow photos last year were unedited but this year, I touched up mine too. But don't be fooled into thinking that majorly overt retouching is done on these exhibits. It's really quite minor and doesn't actually take away anything from the photographs.
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