Coloring Gandhi's Drawing

[Ganesh H Shankar]

A friend of mine, Umashankar, who is also part of this forum shared an interesting blog. This reminded me of the short discussion we had recently about learning from everyone, especially from our young CNPians.

It is said said we are all born creative and we lose it when we grow up, because we need to conform to the "standards". I felt very sad for the little kid mentioned in the blog who may never use blue color in his life! I think there is a need to train teachers to help enhance or at least retain creativity in our young minds. For this reason I think we may need to remain very cautious while commenting on images in our young gallery. They will have a tendency to believe us. Guess what! We could be wrong!! I think we need to understand where they are coming from and knowing their point of view first before forcing our view of the world on them. More so if we know that the person is very young, like for example, our Vidyun here.

[Sree Kumar]

Agree, our (adults) impressions, and comments have a lasting impression on young minds.

I am sharing an experience related to photography and a young mind. During this lockdown, a parent complained, their child has caught the photography bug and is always with either one of their phones, clicking pictures of leaves, bugs, sky everything else except people. I was in for a surprise when I saw some of the images. Then, I had to explain to the parents that their child is thinking like a painter, is artistic, and is visualising and composing images, which is fantastic.

The mobile phone has put a camera in every child's hands which is excellent. But, then not every parent or adult understands photography, can critique, or appreciate their children's photographs appropriately. What is interesting is that most adults consider painting and drawing as art but not photography. They see the camera as just 'a moment of life' record-keeping instrument. Beautiful images are a result of the camera and not the photographer. Under these circumstances, parents depend on social media to gauge their children's talent. Unfortunately, parent's evaluation is based on the 'whoa!' and like count received on Instagram or Facebook by some Tom, Dick n Harry.

Young talents can lose their heart and passion for photography just because they don't get enough likes on Instagram. I believe young CNPian is an excellent forum to mentor young minds with interest in photography and instill that photography is an art by itself. Moreover, parents can be a part of the journey their child takes to explore photography is an art. Hence, the onus is on each one of us to make their journey a memorable one.