What was once a proud and pure photography school now additionally specializes in visual effects and digital transformations. The Symbiosis School of Visual Arts & Photography, earlier known as (Symbiosis School of Photography) has expanded beyond photography and inculcated modern age techniques to match the world.
The interesting point is that the institute holds the pandemic responsible for its new initiative. During the heat of the pandemic, when the world shut down, photography students had fewer ‘natural surroundings’ to capture. “ That is when the institute decided to look ‘indoors’ for inspiration,” explained the director, SSVAP, Gagan Prakash.
“Covid-19 helped us in many ways. Of course, it was challenging for us to run practical courses like our kinds of Institutions do. Areas like liberal arts can still run in online mode, but visual arts cannot run in online mode for long. It's a struggle that was there. I won't deny that," he added.
Gagan added that Covid-19 helped the institute recognize the importance of visual effects. "Media-related areas like film making, animation, model photography, automobile photography, fashion photography, and product photography need to be conducted practically and visual effects played a big role in learning ."
In July 2021, when the campus was back in action, Mr Gagan called the photography students on campus.
"I wanted to experiment, so I called all the students on campus and locked them in the institute’s premises, the students were given the freedom to do anything they wished to. Within a few hours, they captured photographs of everything around them and got back to me, and I knew that we had a path ahead.”
The director added that nothing can take the place of real-life photography, but the need of the hour was finding an alternative. “COVID-19 showed us that it is not just photography but everything else around it which is as important. Several programs like filmmaking, animation, Photoshop, and post-production of the pictures are those disciplines that also gained importance.”
