BHU Exhibition Frames Banaras and India Through 64 Large-Format Photographs

VARANASI: Banaras as ritual city, working city and lived-in neighbourhood is among the subjects filling the walls of a new national photography exhibition at Banaras Hindu University.

“Through the Lens” opened on Tuesday at the Ahivasi Art Gallery in the Faculty of Visual Arts. Organised by the Department of Applied Arts for World Photography Day 2026, the exhibition received more than 250 entries. A selection process narrowed those submissions to 139 works, of which 64 have been produced as large-format prints for the gallery display.

BHU registrar Dr Rajan Srivastava and photographer Amitabh Agarwal inaugurated the exhibition. Faculty of Visual Arts dean Professor Uttama Dixit chaired the programme. The registrar also has two photographs in the display, according to the organisers.

The exhibition moves beyond postcard Banaras. Images of the city’s ghats, folk practices and traditions share space with scenes from other parts of India. That range matters at a moment when photographs are consumed quickly on phones. A large print asks the viewer to slow down, notice the edge of a frame and consider why the photographer stood in one place rather than another.

Agarwal described photography as a meeting point of science and art. The phrase is particularly apt now. Light, lens, exposure and printing remain technical choices, even when software can automatically correct a picture. The art lies in observation, timing, consent and the decision about what not to include. Those questions are increasingly important as manipulated and synthetic images become easier to circulate without context.

For students, a juried show offers more than a wall credit. Seeing work printed at scale reveals technical weaknesses that a small screen can hide. It also allows young photographers to compare documentary, portrait, landscape and experimental approaches in the same room. Conversations with viewers can be as instructive as an award.

The exhibition will remain open through August 21, from 11 am to 5 pm daily. Visitors should check campus access requirements before travelling and respect gallery rules on touching work or taking photographs of the display. Dr Ashish Kumar Gupta and the organising team thanked participants and guests at the opening.

Varanasi is photographed constantly, sometimes until its visual clichés become difficult to escape. The stronger images are the ones that return detail to the city: labour before a ceremony, a quiet expression behind a crowd, or ordinary geometry in a lane. “Through the Lens” gives viewers a chance to look at those choices away from the speed of a social-media scroll. For three more days, the gallery can be entered as a conversation about how India—and Kashi in particular—chooses to see itself.