Dedication to unsung heroes

Arvind Chenji, a renowned photographer shared his photography journey as a part of an art talk organised by Goethe-Zentrum

I am doing a project called ‘Unsung Heroes of India’, in which I am trying to explore the stories of people who defied all odds to survive. I plan to capture 70 stories out of which I have already accomplished 14 and hope to finish the rest as soon as possible

Goethe-Zentrum organised an art talk by renowned photographer Arvind Chenji at its premises which was attended by a huge crowd recently. In the talk show, Arvind shared how he began his journey as a photographer and important people that he met in his career.

Arvind Chenji said, “In 1985, not many people were interested to take up photography as a career. Most of the people wanted to become an IAS or IPS officers. At the beginning of my career, I used to read all the classifieds in the newspapers early in morning to buy a second-hand camera,”

Arvind never enrolled himself in any professional photography course, he learned everything on his own. “We did not have any flashlights option in cameras at that time. I started doing wedding photography, but a man once referred to me as ‘photo walla’, I felt really hurt with those words and decided to quit wedding photography,” added Arvind Chenji.     

“If you are an amateur photographer, you can deliver one good picture out of ten whereas a professional, must deliver 9 good pictures out of 10,” he informed.

He explored, “I used to work on factory shoots and one day it just stuck me ‘what should I get for doing this?’ Later I entered glamour field. In my opinion, photography is all about mind game, nothing to do with what camera you are using and what features it has, it all depends on how you read the subject. Once you learn everything about the subject, you will be able to capture the best of candid pictures. I believe that every picture must have a meaning to convey,”      

Sharing his future plans, Arvind said “I am doing a project called ‘Unsung Heroes of India’, in which I am trying to explore the stories of people who defied all odds to survive. I plan to capture 70 stories out of which I have already completed 14 and hope to finish the rest as soon as possible,”        

It was a rendezvous evening on the terrace of Goethe-Zentrum which was beautified by about 60 prints of Arvind Chenji. Old friends, photographers, students, and admirers listened with great enthusiasm as Arvind spoke about different episodes of his photography journey over the years. The session lasted for about 2 hours and there were about 90 people in attendance.

V Sateesh Reddy