Indian Photo Festival 2022: Where visual stories do the talking

Hyderabad is all set to host the eighth edition of Indian Photo Festival with a slew of exhibitions, masterclasses, workshops and portfolio reviews

The Indian Photo Festival 2022, which will begin in Hyderabad on November 18, will bring together emerging and established photographers, photography enthusiasts and photo editors for workshops, talks, masterclasses and exhibitions. More than 5,000 participants have registered for the month-long eighth edition of the festival, which will be an on-ground event after the pandemic-induced online sessions the last two years. More are expected to sign up in the coming days.

The Indian Photo Festival (IPF) will be inaugurated at the State Gallery of Art, Madhapur, which will host several physical and digital exhibitions and workshops, while a few other exhibitions will unfold at Alliance Francaise, KBR National Park walkway, and Salar Jung Museum in collaboration with Goethe Zentrum. A few pop-up exhibitions will take place at Durgam Cheruvu and metro stations in the city.

Festival director Aquin Mathews says, “The good response we have been receiving is in line with what has been observed in other sectors post-lockdown — revenge travel and shopping. Registrations for some of our workshops are closed, in some there are waiting lists while for others, slots are still open.”

Aquin strongly believes that photographs that highlight social issues can create awareness among viewers. Some of the exhibitions align with this line of thought. 

Photojournalist Smita Sharma’s work explores cross-border human trafficking, French photographer Ana Bloom’s lenses draw attention to the refugee crisis, Italian photographer Diego Fedele highlights the absurdity of war and Hyderabad photographer Nishat Fatima documents the LGBTQIA community. 

One of IPF 2022’s highlights is a group exhibition by 50 women street photographers from 20 countries, curated by Gulnara Samoilova, founder of Women Street Photography collective. Gulnara is known for her photographs that documented the events in the immediate aftermath of the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and won the World Press Photo competition. She will be conducting a street photography workshop in collaboration with photographer Vineet Vohra.

After the IPF announced an open invitation to emerging photographers to showcase their work, photographers from more than 60 countries came forward and shared nearly 800 images. “Many of these images are remarkably good, but we do not have the space to exhibit all of them. So we chose to have 10 print (physical) exhibitions, while 15 exhibitions will be digital, beamed on a large screen at the State Gallery of Art, in a loop,” says Aquin.