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Vibgyor |
T.S. Satyan, a photo-journalist whose career spans over 50 years is a native
of Mysore. Even at 73, the man refuses to retire as he feels life is nothing
but adventure and it has to be recorded. "One has to be a witness to one's own
time," he says.
Satyan, has fond memoirs of his childhood days. He walks down the memory lane and recaptivates those moments. One such, is his ride to school in a Victoria along with his longtime friend M S Sathyu. Satyan graduated in Arts from Maharaja's College in 1944. His contemporaries were H Y Sharada Prasad, Veena Doreswamy Iyengar, R K Laxman and P R Brahmananda, among others.
He borrowed a box camera and took his first pictures which were published in the
college magazine. He bought a Reflex camera with the loan he got from his English
professor Mr Eagleton. In the fifties he was working for The Illustrated Weekly in Mumbai. Hequit his job here despite the encouragement he got from C R Mandy, the editor
of the magazine. He returned to Mysore and freelanced between 1951-57. His
agents Blackstar, in New York helped him to syndicate his pictures in international
publications.
He worked for the "Life" magazine on commission basis in Delhi for three decades. He found his source of inspiration from the legendary Henri Bresson and Edward Steichen. He was fascinated to watch Henri capturing the north Indian countryside with his 35 mm Leica, normal lens, no flash and black and white.
His work `Little People' was displayed at a UNICEF- sponsored exhibition in New York way back in 1979. Here he had said, "What do we mean when we use the word progress? Essentially that our children should live better than us." The optimism that keeps him going are these words which he had uttered then.
A selection of his work which was displayed at a UNICEF- sponsored exhibition will now be on view at the Prism Book House in the Jayanagar Shopping Complex from January 12 in Bangalore.
