Bangalore, December 19: Six senior photojournalists including Yajneshwara Acharya from Mangalore on Sunday received the first TS Satyan Memorial Award for their contribution in the field of photojournalism.
The awards, jointly instituted by Karnataka Photo News (KPN) and web portal churmuri.com in memory of the eminent photojournalist TS Satyan, were given away by Governor HR Bharadwaj at the Raj Bhavan.
The highlight of the function was the slideshow presentations that showcased their work. Each unique in style, they presented a slice of history, politics and society in the state.
While some photographs were high in news value, such as the ones of national leaders visiting the State or in talks with iconic regional leaders, others captured the lighter or weightier shades of rural India.
The award for the best newspaper photojournalist was bagged by Chief Photographer of The Hindu, Bangalore, K Gopinathan while Yajneshwara Acharya, who is affectionately called as Yajna got the lifetime achievement award.
Netra Raju of The Times of India, Mysore, won the best professional Photojournalist award, Bhanu Prakash Chandra of The Week, Bangalore, got the magazine photojournalist award, 'Regret' Iyer of Bangalore got the best freelance photographer award and MS Gopal of Mumbai got the best online photographer award.
Bharadwaj spoke at the length about his relationship with media, the old-time stalwarts in particular. He also remarked that he believed in “keeping the lines of communication open”, and did not subscribe to traditional ideas of what a Governor should or should not do with the media.
He spoke of corruption in the judiciary and the legislature and pointed out that post the Niira Radia tapes, serious aspirations were being cast at certain senior journalists. Later, on the controversial issue of implementation of the recommendations made by the journalist's wage board (now pending in Supreme Court) he said he was on the side of reporters, who felt, must be paid better.
Columnist TJS George congratulated the photographers and spoke about the legacy of Satyan, who he said “was not only an ideal photographer, an ideal journalist but also an ideal human being.”
He reminisced about the transition from the time when news photographs were only about “politicians with a microphone” to a trend where pictures on the page one truly began to capture the essence of “real life”.
KN Shanth Kumar, editor of Prajavani said that photojournalism was a combination of the art of photography and the discipline of journalism. He also spoke of the “emerging trends” in advanced countries where user generated content, high quality images taken by citizen photojournalists was being used by mainstream media.
Gopinathan said everyday was a learning experience for photojournalists. He said that photojournalists tend to be selfless in their pursuit of the perfect picture and take immense risks in their line of duty.
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