2017 starts with a good gathering

YPS Meet | Annual YPS Day | Jan 7 | Venkatappa Art Gallery

Year 2017 took off to a great start with a wonderful gathering of members for the Annual YPS Day Celebration on January 7 at Venkatappa Art Gallery.

The event had immense learning, celebration of achievement, networking among members and food. What more reasons do we need to get together? As people started gathering on another day of traffic choked streets, it was becoming evident that we were in for another great YPS Meet.

YPS Achievements during 2016

The YPS Annual Day started with a welcome address by Shri. H Satish, President, YPS Bengaluru.  He welcomed the Chief Guest and participants and conveyed New Year Greetings to all. He also set the agenda for the day. Shri. Girish Ananthamurthy, Director YPS then summarized the achievements of YPS in the short span of eight months during 2016.

This was followed by address by Chief Guest of the evening Shri. T S Gopal,  a well known literary person who had authored many books on the nature and culture of Karnataka. Shri. Gopal was born in 1955 in Hassan.  He completed BA in Kannada & Sanskrit from Maharaja College, Mysore and emerged as the Gold Medalist.  He also complete his Masters in Kannada an later started teaching as lecturer at Srimangala Pre University college in Kodagu. He spoke about how photography changed the way we looked at things and drew parallels between literature and Photography.

Recognition of Members who achieved Distinctions in 2015 & 2016

It is customary for YPS to recognize members who achieved distinctions in the previous year. A form was created on the YPS Website to report distinctions and requests were broadcast many times to members through email and WhatsApp. The following members reported achievement of distinctions in 2015 & 2016.

Member Distinctions

Shri. Saravanan Selvarajan
  • LRPS on Nov 3, 2015
  • AICS on Aug 28, 2015
  • AFIAP on Jun 13, 2016

Shri. Mohammad Arfan Asif
  • Honorary Fellowship of ICS (Hon.FICS) on Nov 10, 2015
  • Excellence of FIAP (EFIAP) on Jun 13, 2016
  • Excellence of PSA (EPSA) on Sep 14, 2016

Shri. Prasad Jathan
  • AFIAP on Jan 16, 2016

Shri. Vinayaka Seetharam
  • Excellence of FIAP (EFIAP)on Dec 31, 2015

Chief Guest Shri. Gopal recognized Shri. Saravanan Selvarajan and Shri. Vinayaka Seetharam with mementoes from YPS.

 

YPS Photoshare Winners for Dec 2016

In December 2016, YPS announced prizes for Best Photograph and Best Comment on pictures posted on YPS Website by members.  29 photographs were submitted in December 2016. The comments were handful. YPS recognized Shri. Arjun Harith and Smt. Prema Kakade for submitting best images on YPS Photoshare. Congratulations to Arjun an Prema.

Chief Guest Shri. Gopal presented Shri. Arjun and Smt. Prema with gifts from YPS. The gifts for December 2016 were sponsored by Murali Santhanam, Director, YPS.

The YPS Photoshare contest will be held every month. YPS requests members to share pictures and comment on others’ pictures making it a learning habit.

Tryst with Nature

The last event for the at before dinner was a slideshow by Shri. Jayanth Sharma, CEO, Toehold and avid Nature Photographer. In the one hour slide show he showed some remarkable pictures shot in various countries. They were not only remarkable because they were shot in tough locations but also because Jayanth applied photography techniques to present them beautifully. He explained how important it is to go the extra mile to present Nature Pictures as Pictures of Art and not as Natural History images. Throughout his successful career as nature photographer he applied different points of view, lenses and techniques to present animals and birds in compelling story telling images. He explained this with the image of a Lion shot in South Africa where he presented the lion with just rim lighting on the manes and fur making it more interesting than a regular front lit shot. He also took an example of his award winning image of Polar Bear hunting for food on vast area of floating ice. He decided to take this picture using an ultra wide angle lens showing the lonely lives of Polar Bears, instead of getting a closer shot of the Polar Bear. Some of the lessons from his session were,

  • Start with the understanding that you make pictures for others, not for yourself. This helps you push the standard very high.
  • When you are out on the field, you are a 24×7 photographer and you should never miss an opportunity that presents itself
  • Always keep thinking of how to present the subject artistically. Never stop experimenting with different ideas.

The pictures were a feast to the eyes and his talk challenged the mind. In the process everyone forgot about the dinner till the Q&A was completed. Shri. Murali Santhanam presented a memento to Shri. Jayanth Sharma as a token of appreciation.

 

The wonderful day ended with a simple and sumptuous dinner. YPS thanks all those who attended the function and made it a success.