Indo-Pak Photography Contest - Life Folk Arts Built Heritage Landscapes - Season 1

Photography is termed as the Universal Language of the People. It can bind people from various cultures and geographies. It is through photography one can witness perspectives never thought before. It is through the photographer's lens that unseen, unknown realities can be captured and shared. To explore and capture such talent across the borders, we at White Falcon Publishing collaborated with Daastan, Pakistan to organise Indo-Pak Photography contest in 2021.

The contest was based on four themes -

- Life

- Folk Arts

- Landscapes

- Built Heritage

The response from photographers from both the nations was overwhelming. We received submissions from professional photographers who know the art inside out across all four themes, with the theme life attracting the most submissions. This enthusiasm of the participants strengthened our resolve to continue working towards building strong bonds of love and brotherhood across manmade boundaries.

A total of 61 submissions were shortlisted which form part of this book. With such amazing contributions, the book has turned out to be an amazing blend of lifestyle, cultures, societies, landscapes and art forms.

We thank and appreciate the winners of Indo-Pak Photography Contest for their support and contribution.

White Falcon Publishing is a Chandigarh, India based publishing house that was founded in 2014. With more than eight years into operation, White Falcon has published thousands of books, many of which are award winners and best sellers. The publishing house offers a wide range of author-specific services that help budding and established authors to publish, sell and promote their books. With various technologies like blockchain certification implemented, White Falcon Publishing is a technology-driven publishing house. It has helped authors from more than 15 countries publish their books in India and internationally.

With the aim to spread the love for art and literature across borders, White Falcon Publishing has been a pioneer in organising various literary contests in collaboration with Daastan, Pakistan. The first contest of short stories was organised in 2018 - Literati - The South Asian Award for Micro Fiction. This was followed by Literati 2019, Season 2. In the year 2020, Chitthi Sarhad Paar Se, a letter writing contest was organised. Year 2021 saw the Indo-Pak Photography Contest where the love for literature took a turn for the love for art, in the form of photography.

White Falcon Publishing Team believes that one must continue to explore new avenues, new challenges, new possibilities that drive us towards our goal of spreading our love for art and literature sans borders.

Daastan is a book publishing marketplace which acts as a doorway for the world to access the Pakistani market which is 220 million people strong. In past decade, they have built the foundations of the book publishing industry in Pakistan by building a tech platform Qissa (www.meraqissa.com)

Daastan provides end-to-end guided book publishing solutions to its customers. You can get your books written, edited, designed, registered, published, distributed and even marketed within Pakistan.

They currently hold Commonwealth's Regional Finalist Award, UNESCO's Media Information Literacy Award and National Winner of SDG Bootcamp by UNDP.

What makes Daastan unique is that it was born out of a personal struggle of the founder who was unable to publish his debut book in Pakistan, a decade ago. Being a descendent of a literary figure named Muhammad Basir, the man who invented Urdu calligraphy toolkit in sub-continent in early 1800s, he took it upon himself to fix this problem.