Prakash Hatvalne’s world of lense

Posted by: N D Sharma on: August 26, 2009

In: Media
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Though restless by nature, Prakash Hatvalne becomes transformed when he focusses his camera on the object and waits with patience till the right expression has appeared on the human face in front of him or he patiently goes on adjusting
the lense till the right angle has been achieved to give the best possible view of the landscape. What then we have is more of a work of art than a printout of a negative.
Prakash’s human subject appears as if it is trying to burst out of the frame to
convey his/her innermost thought to the viewer. The Buddhist children (above), for instance. How vividly the boredom of the dull ritual of prayer for that young age has been captured! Or the mixture of feelings of pleasure, anxiety, apprehension and uncertainty that the
child bride must be experiencing inside the veil! Or the tribal belles trying a modern attire while rooted in the tribal environ!

This beautiful photograph of a mosque at Medan, the third largest city of Indonesia after Jakarta and Surabaya, was taken by Prakash through the coloured window of a house nearby. Or look at his photograph of a Chinese woman going to work with her child slung on her back, or the farmers working in the paddy fields in Indonesia or the landscape (in black and white) in Thailand.
Prakash’s speaking photographs have appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Independent, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Time Magazine, Gulf News, BBC Online, The Telegraph, The Times of India, India Today, The Outlook, Mid-Day and Tehelka.
Prakash held his tenth Photo Exhibition in Bhopal’s Bharat Bhavan in the last week of August. His first exhibition on the Bhopal MiC Gas Leak disaster. He later exhibitions included: Oslo, Norway (1990), Bhopal, in cooperation with Alliance de Francaise (1993), Bhopal and Gwalior (on images of the Gujarat earthquake –2001), France (2003), New Delhi (2003), Mumbai (2004), Bhopal (2005 and 2007).
Prakash is recipient of several awards: First Prize of EPCO (1988), First Prize of the Madhya Pradesh Government (2005), Second Prize of the China Folklore Photographic Association in the Humanity Photographs category (2006), Third Prize of the Garuda International Photo Contest (Indonesia—2008), First Prize of the State (of Madhya Pradesh) Photography Competition (2009) and the First Prize of the Friends of Earth International Photo Contest (Netherlands –2009).