Thursday, June 16, 2011

Iliangna Haralu~ Playing with Images

Since childhood she has been drawn to the world of images, and perhaps this is where her influence on taking up photography really began. But much more than a hobby, photography is a passion for Iliangna Haralu, which she describes as gradually becoming a profession.
Interestingly, she never took up any formal training in photography but states that she was able to nurture this passion even more closely with the Internet. “This led me to experiment with photographing my immediate surroundings”, she says.
Having started really young in this line, her recent recognition includes a list of her images in Hats for Haiti (a Photobook by Tony Eccles), Vogue India May 2010 issue and Vogue India Feb 2011 issue respectively.
The 24-year-old got her early education from Christian Higher Secondary School Dimapur in 2007 and attended Llandrillo College in North Wales, UK, where she completed the VRQ-2 programme in Culinary Arts with distinctions in the year 2008.
Since then she has launched her own catering service including a page (www.facebook.com/i.bake.dimapur), which she uses as a medium to get orders from across Nagaland and neighbouring states.
Currently she is pursuing her graduation though a correspondence course and says, “I opted for the correspondence because it left me time to pursue my other passions which are Catering and Photography”.
It is her dream to have a chain of stores first across Nagaland and then the neighbouring states in North-East India and finally make her presence felt in the metropolitan cities in the country. When asked where she goes from here, she is quick to say “I am often asked this question, to which my reply is my dream is not yet complete. I have only taken the first step.”
“At the moment I know I have miles and miles to go before I rest my feet,” she adds.
But for somebody her age, she has come a long way capturing and catering. Photography, which she takes both as a passion and a hobby, is a good combination, she says.
Her forte lies in taking portraits but says that since the hobby is an expensive one, she is delighted to photograph any kind of event. Like any other modern technology, she feels that “the changes in photography equipment is equally rapid and coupled with high budgets...you are always left wondering if you can afford the latest version of camera body and lenses”.
She refuses to comment on the scope of photography while maintaining that it is not even two years since she has taken to photography seriously. “So I may not qualify to comment on its prospects,” she says. However, in her personal view, “Photography like any other venture in Nagaland can be limited only by one's individual approach and how hard one is willing to strive at it.”
Throwing a few opinions on the Naga youth, she believes the talent and potential is right here, ‘but for entrepreneurs like me who have no business , it would be a great help if someone could organise a brief Business Management course for the likes of me in Nagaland.”
She feels that the youth today are faced with multifaceted challenges and views that “the root cause for this stems from a lack of absence of vision of their future. Some have either stopped dreaming or those that dream have not been equipped to achieve their dream. There could be several reasons for this such as lack of quality education that challenge the youth to reach beyond themselves, lack of professional management of human resources within the State and an increasing communication gap between parents and children. These factors coupled with governance that validates corruption makes the times extremely hard for the present Naga Youth.”
As for her, she hopes to keep her passion alive, and this, she says “I do so by keeping myself engaged at all times”.
When asked about other things she enjoys doing, she is prompt to add “I like this question the most. I love to travel, shopping for leisure and my professional needs and of course music.”
It is also interesting to note that she comes from an interesting family wherein she describes her Mom as a Gardener and Dad as a Musician.
Driven by passion, there are definitely greater things waiting for this young Photographer...
One can find her pictures at http://www.iliangnaharalu.blogspot.com/ and www.facebook.com/Iliangna.Haralu.Photography.

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