The National Photo Awards 2010
- commemorate golden jubilee celebrations of Photo Division
Life Time Achievement Awards conferred upon four outstanding photographers
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aunched for the first time in order to commemorate the golden jubilee celebrations of Photo Division, a media unit of Ministry of I&B, the National Photo Awards 2010 for Life Time Achievement were recently conferred upon four eminent photojournalists and pictorialists by the vice president of India M Hamid Ansari in New Delhi. With objective to honour the creative and long standing contribution of photographers in the field of photography, the awards constitute an integral component of the year-long golden jubilee celebrations of Photo Division.
The first category of awards honoured two eminent photojournalists including Homai Vyarawalla of Vadodara, 97 years of age, popularly known as the first Indian lady photojournalist in the country; and S Paul, 79 years of age, an eminent photojournalist who was the chief photographer of the Indian Express from 1962 to 1988. In the Pictorialists category, the Life Time Achievement Award were conferred to Benu Sen of Kolkata, 79 year old, a living legend in pictorial photography; and KG Maheshwari from Mumbai, an 88 years old creative legend in portrait photography.
The vice president M Hamid Ansari, the union minister for I&B Ambika Soni, the minister of state for I&B Choudhury Mohan
Jatua, the secretary at Ministry of I&B Raghu Menon, the special secretary at Ministry of I&B Uday Kumar Verma, the chairman
jury Mike Pandey and the director of Photo Division Debatosh Sengupta at the award presentation ceremony in New Delhi.
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Homai Vyarawalla is popularly known for her artistic work in the pre and post partition period. She studied in JJ School of Art and started her career as a freelancer with Illustrated Weekly. Her depiction of political events remained imprinted in public memory since several decades. While S Paul, the winner of the maximum photo awards in the country and abroad, is the first Indian to have been profiled with a portfolio of four pictures by the world’s oldest and prestigious The British Journal of Photography Annual 1967 followed by another portfolio with article in the 1969 edition (UK). He is also the first Indian to win Nikon International Photo Contest in 1971.
Author of several books on photography including the famous publication Art of Photography published in 1979, Benu Sen is the secretary-general, Federation of Indian Photography and president of Photographic Association of Dum Dum. His contribution, both as an individual artist and as a promoter for the development of Indian photography exceeds that of any living Indian photographer. He has been adjudged the best Indian Pictorialist by the Camera World International, Australia and the Harvard Senetic Museum. The second recipient in the Pictorialist category KG Maheshwari has won over 400 awards, including the honour of being an Associate of Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain (ARPS) in the year 1946. He was also conferred by the Photographic Society of India with its highest honour 'The Honorary Life Membership’.
The vice president M Hamid Ansari presenting the first National Photo Award 2010 for
Life Time Achievement to Homai Vyarawalla, S Paul, Benu Sen and KG Maheshwari
respectively, at the Golden Jubilee Celebration of Photo Division in New Delhi on
August 19, 2010. Ambika Soni, the union minister for Information and Broadcasting;
Choudhury Mohan Jatua, the minister of state for I&B; Raghu Menon, the secretary, I&B;
and Debatosh Sengupta, director, Photo Division, Ministry of I&B are also seen.
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On the occasion congratulating Photo Division for the good work of documentation, production and preservation it has done over decades in recording for daily life and for posterity events of national and international significance, the vice-president of India M Hamid Ansari said, “What is true of individuals is true of societies. The record keeping is done both by official institutions like the Photo Division and by individuals who develop a passion for the art and excel in it. Technology has simplified the process; the discerning eye, nevertheless, remains a rarity, a skill to be cultivated by the gifted few.” He showed confident that the Photo Division would continue to contribute in ever increasing measure to recording the progress as a nation.
