There is a different kind of pleasure in attending a group exhibition. The theme could be one,but the perspectives will be many. For the second edition of its annual WOW India Photo and Painting Exhibition,the Pune Expat Club invited participants to bring photographs and paintings depicting their ideas of India. Entrepreneurs,businessmen and women,and corporate professionals from the expat community in the city were the exhibitors at this event that was held at Ista Hotel on Sunday. The programme had been organised in collaboration with the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce and all proceeds from the sale of the exhibits will be directed to the NGO Ashraya Initiative For Children.

Amongst the many exhibitors was German Ralf Heger,director of architectural firm Apluss Consult Pvt Ltd. Two photographs by him were on display. “They are from a holiday trip to Ladakh,” he says. Heger’s keen interest is in landscape photography and his interest found the perfect subject in the form of Ladakh. “I wanted to present the beauty of the landscape there. This kind of photography is not exactly possible in Pune,” he adds.

Irish Stephen Smith,director of Pixel Image,admitted that he struggled to fish out two photographs for the exhibition out of the 100s he has. “It was a different thing to pull off,” says Smith who has been a resident of Pune for almost three years now. He finally picked two of his favourites. One is a picture of the Jantar Mantar in Delhi. “The way it has been shot,it looks like two faces looking at each other. Like a husband and wife maybe,” he explains. The second one is a shot taken at Khardung La. “It was just amazing there; a feeling of being at the top of the world. India really affords us the opportunities for such feelings and such photographs.”

German Luzia Harr is sparse with her words,but her photographic zeal likes to capture nature in all its flourishing beauty. In Pune,her nature trail led her to photograph the Mula-Mutha rivers. “I have been living in the city for the past three years,and find a lot of opportunities to capture nature and its beauty here,” she says.