Visakhapatnam is doubling up for World Photography Day, with two separate exhibitions running across the city on August 19 and 20 — one rooted in the year's headlines, the other in art, wildlife and unscripted moments.
The first, 'News in Frames', is the annual show from the Vizag Photo Journalists' Association, hosted at the Visakha Museum from 10am to 6pm on both days. Twenty-six photographers from various media organisations have contributed images shot over the past year, all of them anchored in Visakhapatnam. Expect frames from big-ticket maritime events like the Milan naval exercise and the President's Fleet Review, alongside cyclone aftermath, motorsport action and quieter moments from the city's news calendar. The curators' point is simple: a single news photograph carries layers — the main event, the onlookers, the setting, the small details a hurried headline misses. The exhibition opens with an inauguration by Ketan Garg, Commissioner of the Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation.
Across town at Andhra University's Department of Hindi, the Waltair Photographic Society marks its 25th anniversary with a second exhibition, running 9am to 8pm on the same dates. This one pulls in 30 photographers from Visakhapatnam, Chennai, Kakinada, Rajahmundry and Vijayawada, and shifts the lens away from breaking news entirely: wildlife, nature, landscapes and candid wedding photography. The society is affiliated to the Andhra Pradesh Photography Akademi, and the guest list is suitably weighty — Padma Bhushan awardee Yarlagadda Lakshmi Prasad as chief guest, with Jaladi Ravi, Principal of Andhra University's Arts and Commerce College, as special guest. Memorial and appreciation awards will also be handed out, including the Sri Palla Raja Rao Memorial Award for The Hindu photographer K R Deepak.
For visitors, the pairing works well as a single-day itinerary. You could spend the morning and early afternoon with the photojournalists at the museum near the port side of the city, then head to the university campus in the evening for the wider art show, which stays open two hours later. Both events are free to browse and need no booking, so they slot easily into a coastal Andhra trip without much planning.
It's also a good excuse to see Visakhapatnam through local eyes. The city's identity — naval base, cyclone-prone coastline, beach boulevard — shows up in both exhibitions, but filtered very differently: one as record, the other as art. Travellers who enjoy photographing their own trips will find plenty of inspiration, from the fishermen and cargo ships of the harbour to the green hills that frame the city.
