Ingrin Institute offers courses in photojournalism

Ingrin, the well-known institute of printing & graphics, has decided to offer a certificate course in photojournalism and this move is timely when the print media is expanding with several new newspapers appearing in the market. The lack of such a professional training course has been felt for a long time. A limited number of photography courses have been available in the country, but none were specifically designed for photojournalism. As such, Sri Lankan photojournalists usually have had to learn on the job, often leaving them with gaps in their knowledge.

Ingrin, a semi-government institution under the Ministry of Tertiary Education and Training in collaboration with INGRIN of the Netherlands, has been offering a successful series of courses for the printing and packaging industry, including desktop publishing and certificate courses in Photoshop and scanning, Quark ExPress, Illustrator and Advance Photoshop. As this knowledge is in demand by the print media, many students find employment in the country's newspaper companies.

Many photographers find Photoshop a useful tool in photofinishing and retouching etc. Therefore, students undertaking the photojournalism course can easily go on to the INGRIN Photoshop course, which is designed to aid image manipulation. It will also help artists, layout people and other professionals. It's not provided as part of the photojournalism course but will be a separate entity.

While the emphasis will be on photojournalism, students will be taught the basics of other disciplines of photography - such as portraiture, landscapes and still lifes. Introductory lectures in aspects of commercial photography such as weddings and fashion will be part of the course.

The course will be conducted by Gamini Akeemana, a writer and photojournalist with over two decades of experience in newspapers. He is currently a full-time feature writer and columnist for the Daily Mirror.

He is a gifted writer who has won the National Arts Council award for literature as well as the Gratiaen Prize, but his personal obsession with photography has led him to cover all aspects of photojournalism, including war reportage.

His enthusiasm for photography has driven him to explore disciplines which had very few followers since the 1980s, such as black and white, colour transparencies as well as macro photography. In addition, he has an extensive knowledge of photographic history and masters of the medium.

He will be giving slide demonstrations during the lectures, and there will be several workshops, both indoor and outdoor. The emphasis will be on the practical aspects. Students will be using colour negatives, black & white negatives as well as transparencies in their practical work.

For further inquiries contact the Marketing Division 011-242-1846, Ingrin Institute of Printing and Graphics, 290, D. R. Wije-wardene Mawatha, Colombo 10. The writer is Director of Studies, Ingrin Institute of Printing and Graphics Sri Lanka Ltd.