Intwasa trains own camera persons

Standard People
BY KHULANI NKABINDE Organisers of the annual Intwasa Arts Festival are in the process of training photographers who would document the entire arts showcase to be held in Bulawayo in September.

Festival director, Raisedon Baya told StandardLife&Style that 12 budding photographers were part of the workshop that would also give birth to a project titled “Bulawayo in 100 Pictures”.

Baya said the project involved selecting 100 good photographs of anything in Bulawayo that would be exhibited after the workshop.

“All the 12 photographers will present pictures then through our facilitators we will choose the best 100 images for the exhibition,” said Baya.

“What led to us holding a workshop of this nature is that we realised that we would rely on volunteer photographers in previous festivals but they would not give us the kind of material that we wanted in terms of creativity and style.”

Baya said a few of the photographers who showed promise would then be given the task of covering the festival.

He said Intwasa this year hoped to have good images to come out at the end as a result of the training of photographers.

The festival’s theatre consultant, Witness Tavarwisa said the training workshop had come at the “right time for those who would want to document the festival”.

“Most of the photographers that we have here are self-taught. They will gain invaluable knowledge through this workshop. Even us as artists, we would stage our performances knowing full well that our acts would be properly covered,” he said.

One of the facilitators, photo-journalist Lucky Tshuma however bemoaned the low number of females in photography.