A trip to Jaisalmer turns picture-perfect for student

Sanya Jain was just 10 years old when she clicked the photograph that won her the first prize in the 2016 National Geographic International Photography Contest for children in the ‘wild vacation’ category (international). It was an image of the Indian Army’s camel corps in full regalia, the gangly animals decked in colourful baubles, and mounted by thick mustachioed soldiers in impressive orange turbans and orange-trimmed livery. Taken from below, the animals look almost regal with their noses thrust in the air and the men looking into the distance, waving orange standards.

The photograph (below) was taken in Jaisalmer during the annual desert festival held there, says Sanya, now 12 years old and studying in Class VII of Army Public School, Ambala Cantonment. Her father, Lieutenant Colonel Pankaj Jain, a veterinary officer in the Indian Army’s Remount Veterinary Corp, had then been posted in Jaipur and the family — Sanya has a younger sister — had gone to Jaisalmer on vacation.

It was only a year earlier that Sanya had picked up the camera, inspired and tutored by her father, a photography enthusiast. “I taught her the basics of focal length, light and exposure,” says Jain, who gifted her his own DSLR camera, a Canon 550D, on her ninth birthday. “Whenever we go on a vacation these days, we went to Simla recently, it is Sanya who takes the photographs,” says the proud father.

“I clicked many photographs during that Jaisalmer trip — of the sunset, the sand, the dancers. Then, when I saw an advertisement in Tell Me Why — 100 Great Scientists about a photography competition by National Geographic magazine, I told my father about it and we decided to send an entry,” says Sanya, who does not have an Instagram account yet. And it hit the jackpot, chosen from among 46,000 entries which had to first clear national rounds (the competition was conducted by the US edition of National Geographic and nine other local editions). The win, which brings with it a bag of goodies including a pair of binoculars and a tab, and an all-paid trip to Washington to receive the award, has made Sanya a minor celebrity, at least in school, where teachers have had her tell the school all about her achievement.

Not surprisingly, Sanya wants to be a photographer when she grows up, though she says she’ll take up science. Fashion photographer Mario Testino and documentary photographer Steve McCurry (famous for his photograph of the ‘Afghan Girl’ that was carried on the cover of a National Geographic edition) are her role models. So will it be fashion photograph or photojournalism? “No, I like to take photographs of nature more,” she says shyly.