Abhishek Choubey with a group of children in Patna. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

A student of National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, has embarked on a unique mission of tutoring children from the economically weaker section of society in photography as part of his course project.

Patna resident Abhishek Choubey (26), who is pursuing a postgraduate diploma in photography (design) at NID, said: “I aim to make slum children learn the art of photography so that they can eke a living from it once they grow up.”

From end-May, Choubey has selected a group of 12 children from economically backward families in Rajendra Nagar, Bahadurpur Gumti and their neighbouring localities. He has provided them two digital SLR cameras and three compact aim-and-shoot cameras to take pictures of heritage buildings and streets of the state capital in a different style.

Once complete, Choubey plans to compile all the photographs in a coffee table book.

“Children have taken some amazing photographs of Golghar, Darbhanga House and street vendors among others from a fresh perspective. Whatever students learnt from me in the past two months, they have utilised it in the best possible manner, which is evident from their photographs. I plan to give this collection the shape of a book titled Bachchon Ki Nazar Se Patna. How they see their town, heritage sites, this book will give an idea to its readers,” he added.

Choubey plans to invite chief minister Nitish Kumar to the book release programme. “We plan to visit the chief minister’s house. The children want to take his photographs for the book,” he added.

Choubey said he would get 70-75 copies of the book printed and would gift them to renowned photographers such as Raghu Rai, Sunil Gupta and Prashant Panjiar.

Raja Kumar, a Class IX student of a government school, who trained under Choubey and is also a part-time newspaper vendor, said: “Learning photography from Abhishek bhaiya (brother) was an amazing experience. I had never used an SLR camera in my life. Now, I know about rule of line, rule of odd, shutter speed and other technical terms used in photography.” He has taken photographs of Golghar focusing on street vendors in the foreground.

Choubey would submit his project in September and would release the book on Children’s Day.