Neralu Tree Festival is a crowd-funded event that brings the community together to celebrate Bangalore’s rich heritage – its trees. During the festival, the citizens engage in a variety of interactive sessions to learn about trees, ecology, urban planning and a lot more. Through tree walks, workshops, talks, dance, drama, art displays and photography exhibits curated by experts in the field, Neralu brings trees and people closer.
For Neralu 2014, renowned photographer Vivek Muthuramalingam curated an elaborate photography exhibition. Vivid images that highlight the beautiful flowering avenue trees of Bangalore were displayed, as were artistic renditions of forest trees. The photographs were exhibited at Bal Bhavan during the festival and saw a footfall of over 4,000 in two days.
This year, for Neralu 2015, we invite entries from all of you. This is an open call to all the photographers in the city. Tell us your tree story; show us your love for trees – all in the form of photographs. Your photographs should portray your perspectives of nature and your intimate understanding of it.
The photographs will finally be displayed at the various venues of Neralu Tree Festival, 2015. Please send in your photographs to neralufestival@gmail.com. Submissions should reach us by January 25th 2015; late submissions will not be accepted. All entries will go through a selection process and only a selected number of prints will be displayed at the venues.
Themes
- Textures & Patterns in Nature – There are myriad textures, patterns and colors in nature. Observe them, capture them and send us your interpretation.
- Neralu – Neralu means shadow in Kannada. So, show us how best you perceive shade, connected to trees. Photograph the beautiful play of shadows and Neralu moments.
- Trees in Public Places – Trees are everywhere – on our streets, in our yards, in the middle of the market, inside a bus stop, in our parks… This is your opportunity to capture them as you see them around you.
Submission of Entries
- Photographs of not more than 5 MB in size must be submitted online to neralufestival@gmail.com.
- Entries should be in JPEG format and at least 3,000 pixels wide for a horizontal image or 3,000 pixels tall for a vertical image.
- Each participant can submit up to three entries in each theme.
- Final date of submission – January 25th 2015.
- All photographs have to be shot in cameras with a minimum of 8 megapixels.
- Digital manipulation that distorts the reality of the photos will not be allowed. Only basic enhancements such as sharpening, contrast adjustment, or simple cropping will be allowed.
- Every photograph should be accompanied by Caption, 150-word description/concept note, Name of photographer, Contact number and Email ID
- Mandatory naming convention for email and photographs:
- Email subject line à PhotoProject_ThemeName
- Photograph name à PhotographerName_ThemeName
Copyright
- The copyrights to the photograph will remain with the photographer.
- Entries must be the original work and the participant must be the copyright owner.
- Neralu is a non-commercial event. Images received for the photography competition will not be used for any commercial purposes.
About Neralu
NERALU, meaning shade in Kannada, is a descriptive metaphor for the annual urban Tree festival and indicates what trees have meant to so many citizens of Bengaluru. Bangaloreans share historical, cultural and ecological stories and experiences because of trees that enrich our urban existence. NERALU is a way in which this can be celebrated, shared and reflected upon.As citizens of Bangalore / Bengaluru, we come together once a year to celebrate the wide diversity, aesthetics, functionality, ecology, histories and our memories of our city’s trees. This is one-of-a-kind public event that celebrates trees, and possibly the only one in the recent times to be a completely crowdfunded, completely Citizen led event. The Neralu organising community is now a large network of over 200 people. Neralu 2015 will be held on February 7th, 8th and 14th.
More info about Neralu
- Photography Project: www.neralu.in/neralu-photo-project
- Website: www.neralu.in
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/neralufestival
The content has been provided by Poornima Kannan on behalf of Neralu, and has been published as is under the Message Forward section, a space meant for non-profit public interest messages by individuals and organisations.
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