ALAPPUZHA: Tittu Shaji Thomas, belonging to Mannar near Alappuzha, was injured while playing kabaddi in Dubai, where he had gone to work in 2009. That led the former Kerala University kabaddi player to focus on his other passion, photography.
13 years on, he is an award-winning photographer, the latest being a prestigious one instituted by the UAE government -- the Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum International Photography Award. It carries a prize money of 50,000 dirhams (approximately Rs 10 lakh). The 34-year-old was selected from among 2,176 contestants from 89 countries.
“I wasn’t that serious about photography during my college days as I was fascinated by kabaddi, and also painting,” Tittu told TNIE over the phone from Dubai. “After completing education at the MSM College, Kayamkulam, I reached the UAE. I continued to be involved with sports. But a knee injury led to ligament damage. I was bedridden for several days and doctors advised me to stop playing kabaddi. That was a turning point in my life.” He has been working as a marketing executive for a steel company, and is living there with wife Rakhi Elizabeth and daughter Aami.“I focused my photography on the lives of ordinary people in the UAE. On holidays, I travel to villages to capture the life among sand dunes and farmhouses situated far away from the city centre,” he said.
A self-taught photographer, Tittu has also received other photography awards for his work depicting the life of people of the Middle East over the past few years. His pictures were featured in the National Geographic Magazine too. In 2019, he was bestowed with the 5th international photography award named ‘35 Awards’ in Russia, and won the Canon Middle East Photography Competition in 2020-2021. He is the winner of the Karl Taylor international photography competition ‘Patterns 2021’.