May 13 2022, we saw our sleepless nights and breathless days taking shape in front of our eyes. Kolkata has witnessed a lot of photographic exhibitions. However FOTOJAJS FOTOFEST stood out for sure with the grandness for the love of photography and talent.

Fotojajs always wanted the members to be in the forefront and thus we did not have a celebrity for inauguration. The participants rather the budding photographers along with our mentor Joydeep Mukherjee did the honor.

The exhibition ran till 15th of May 2022. In total 90 photographs got exhibited from the three nations - India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Surprisingly we found almost all the participants from Kolkata to have fun filled photographic adda during all the three evenings.  The happiness for the first timers knew no limit and watching them soaking in the spirit was worth experiencing. Friends and family of the participants also paid multiple visits and were so happy and supportive. As a platform we, the Team FOTOJAJS, were satisfied and happy to curve a platform for the budding photographers of our society.

The last day was facilitation day. We had the renowned photographer Sankha Kar with us as the Guest of Honour along with one of our judges Kushal Ray. We had the honour of felicitating our all time support system, the eminent photographer Nilanjan Ray and our mentor Joydeep Mukherjee.

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t was a whopping 2000+ entries in the first part of the mega event of FOTOJAJS FOTOFEST - an online contest run over a period of two weeks. Shortlisting 100 photos from amongst that sea of submission was a mommoth task. The ones who made it to the final lists got to exhibIt their photos in the main event - the exhibition at Gallery Gold in Kolkata.

It’s been quite a challenge for the jury members to select the toppers as there was a tough fight between the final contenders. They took on each other for single points and the real deserving candidates bagged the first three awards.

The competition was cut throat and we were compelled to break the rule of marking two Honorable Mentions. We ended up increasing the number and finally picked five for that spot. Yet, we cannot do away with the feeling that there were more photos which should have been mentioned.

Write Up: Rimita Sen

Photo Coverage: Debraj Mukherjee