THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The ‘digitalisation’ of the photo world was the factor that prompted N L Balakrishnan to totally focus on acting, says noted filmmaker-cinematographer Shaji N Karun.
“Balakrishnan was not ready to cooperate with the digital technology as he was trained and had worked with film rolls. He was against digital photography. According to him, digitalisation affected creativity. When a photographer is working with film, as it is costly, he will not attempt unnecessary clicks. But digitalisation gives photographers the freedom to take many clicks for a single photo. That means it affects their creativity and they lose focus,” remembers Shaji.
“Our relation started during the shoot of Aravindettan’s ‘Kanchanaseetha.’ He was the still photographer of that movie. During that period, the photographers used to take stills of the actors after the take. But Balakrishnan didn’t follow that rule. He took the stills during ‘takes’ itself,” says Shaji N Karun.
“Balan was the still photographer in almost all the movies for which I cranked camera. Apart from Aravindettan’s movies, he worked with me for the movies directed by other directors too. But, while I called him for my debut movie as director of ‘Piravi’, he could’t join the sets as he was busy with some other works. Later, he worked with me in my Hindi project ‘Nishad’. For that movie, his remuneration was a brand new camera as he was planning to buy a new one,” remembers Shaji.
Balakrishnan was closely attached to some major literary-social-theatre personalities in Malayalam. “He might be the only photographer who took some rare photos of such people. He used share good relations with Vaikom Muhammed Basheer, M T Vasudevan Nair, Kakkanadan, Namboothiri and Aravindan. He had clicked many photos of them and I think there are still some rare photos in his collection,” he says.
Apart from being an actor and photographer, he was an avid reader and language lover.
“He was very fond of Malayalam language and was an avid reader of Malayalam books. He could write good articles in Malayalam,” he says.
Balakrishnan used to keep a good relation with all and he was an open-hearted man who hated lying. “He used to maintain good relations with everyone and had a helping mentality. He had introduced many chance seekers to directors. He didn’t say a negative word about others but he was ready to say the truth,” remembers Shaji.