KOCHI: Do you think the best photos are captured only when a photographer knows a camera inside-out or when he or she does a course in photography? Lakshmi Unnithan has done neither. In fact, she is a self-taught photographer.
Nine years ago, her husband gave her a camera. “I started paying attention to the minute details, like a flower growing out of a wall, or bananas placed inside a bowl,” says Lakshmi.
The right image is captured at the right time, and it is very important for a photographer to know that. Lakshmi says, “I started photographing the things in my house and it gave me an idea of the right shot with the required light.”
For example, the morning light which falls on the leaves outside the house is a perfect time to take a picture of it. Besides her passion for photography, Lakshmi’s interest in writing led her to create a blog, ‘Celebrations Of life’. Here, she describes the moments that she had captured with her camera. Sometimes, she travels to other places to get good photographs. Recently, she went to Kannur and Alleppey and took photos of wooden objects, such as a chair or a door.
“I am very much attracted to the colour brown,” she says. At Kochi, Lakshmi is holding an exhibiton titled ‘Reflections’ (from June 23-30) at the Durbar Hall Art Gallery. Around 78 photos will be displayed. Lakshmi says, “To be a photographer, you don’t need an expensive camera or have to travel to exotic destinations to take good images.”
Brought up in Thiruvananthapuram and in a family, which has an interest in the arts, Lakshmi says she was always interested in theatre and music. But her husband’s gift sparked her interest in photography. “Today, photography has become my passion. It helped me to fill up the empty spaces in my world with something interesting,” she says.