Photography exhibition: Show me Lahore

110 photographers participate in the competition at the Heritage Museum.


Express April 07, 2011

LAHORE:


Farhan Zohaib, a student of Punjab University’s College of Arts and Design, won the first My Lahore photography competition organised under the Lahore Shopping Festival (LSF) on Wednesday.


He, in his photograph, had captured some children playing with a wooden top with the Badshahi Masjid in the background.

Zohaib, who was awarded Rs0.1 million, said he had not expected his photograph to make it that far.

He said it took him days to decide what he wanted to show when it came to portraying Lahore through pictures. “As easy as it sounds, it is quite a challenging decision,” he said.

He said he did not want to miss the historical architecture or the cultural heritage of the city.

He was handed over the prize by Sheikh Muhammad Arshad, the LCCI vice president, and photographer Nawaz Alam, who himself was the winner in the professional photographers’ category.

Alam’s photograph showed some children and a woman in a wooden balcony purchasing vegetables by hanging a basket to reach the vendor in the street in Gowalmandi.

Alam told The Express Tribune that with decades of experience in photography, for him the topic was very easy to deal with. “I chose the site, snapped the photograph and here I am.”

The exhibition is at a hall inside the Lahore Heritage Museum, The Mall. There are 216 photographs by 110 photographers.

The photographs were divided into two categories, one showing modern Lahore and the second the traditional Lahore.

Some visitors, however, criticised pictures those were treated through editing software.

Prof Israr Chisti, one of the jury members and a teacher at the PUCAD, termed treated photographs as graphics. He said there was no place for treated pictures in a competition that aimed at displaying the originality of Lahore.

He urged the participants to put their code numbers on the photographs in the future instead of their names to eliminate the chances of favouritism by jury.

Arshad said that as a business community, the LCCI wanted to create small businesses and jobs by promoting culture. “If we have the government’s support, we would want to arrange the festival every year,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 7th, 2011.

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