The story behind the story- Maria Emelianova, Praggnanandhaa and Nagalakshmi

A photo essay

A photograph speaks a 1000 words. In Maria Emelianova’s case, it has spoken more than a million words and is still counting in Baku. One of the best in the business, the picture by Emelianova of Praggnanandhaa and his mother has gone viral not simply in the chess world but also in the world at large. The photograph stands for everything that is good about India. Humility, simplicity and poise. With an experience of more than a decade, her journey was almost destined to happen. And once she started taking pictures, first with a borrowed camera, it became a passion, which soon defined her life.

Now her experience of having covered every chess tournament gives her the eye to capture every detail and every nuance in the chess world. Even the slightest head shake is an opportunity and Maria hardly ever misses it.

Today while we celebrate Praggnanandhaa, we also celebrate Maria and her extraordinary pictures. In answering the backstory of the Praggnanandhaa Nagalakshmi photo, this is what she had to say, “I’ve been taking photos in the chess events since 2010 and, when you do exclusively one sport for so long, you get player’s personalities, reactions and range of emotions imprinted in your memory and sometimes my choice of angles and movement comes from a muscle memory or intuition rather than from my conscious planning.
I’ve always admired Nagalakshmi, Vaishali – Pragg’s sister, and also his dad, whom I met in Chennai: same as all my Indian friends, they are kind, humble, care for each other and give everything to chess, while making Indian people so proud.

But parents deserve a special praise: the joy and happiness in their eyes when their kid wins speak so much and so little at the same time – we don’t see all the hard work behind their children’s success, all the sacrifice, risk and sleepless nights. I’ve been lucky to meet Harika’s grandmother, Gukesh’s dad and Pragg’s parents, but they hardly ever step a foot into the playing hall, so when I saw Nagalakshmi there during the tie break, I realised this could be a special photograph. I did not want Pragg’s reaction to the win, but hers! I saw that he is winning, of course: it helps to be a titled player, so I instinctively switched my position and pointed the camera at her. To be honest, I had a tear running down my cheek while looking at her. And later, I don’t even remember how I got there to take the photo that made all the news. It was her moment and the moment of every parent all over the world to shine and to know: it’s all worth it ”.

Putting things in context, G Rajaraman who has taken some fantastic photos himself, says “A good photograph typically captures a piece of action for posterity or show the emotions of the person or people being photographed. One does not need expensive equipment to capture unusual moments. On the contrary, it helps to understand a sport and its practitioners so that one can anticipate the action unfolding or the show of emotion that is likely to follow a passage of play.

To my mind, a sports photograph should be able to convey a story on its own. The photograph of Long Jumpers Jeswin Aldrin and M Sreeshankar leaping on adjacent runways at the same time is a fairly good illustration of the progress that India has made in some athletics disciplines. The results for both athletes may have been contrasting but the moment has a powerful tale to tell.

Initially I was inspired by watching my father click pictures with an Agfa Recorder, a camera that with bellows and housed 120mm film roll, and a flash gun which employed single-use bulbs. Then when I became a journalist, I was privileged to watch VV Krishnan and learn from conversations with him. ‘It is about anticipation and not reaction’ he would say.

It is such anticipation that helped him click an all-time favourite photograph of Jonty Rhodes flinging himself at the wicket, and extending his hand with the cricket ball, to run out Inzamam-ul-Haq in the 1992 Cricket World Cup in Australia. It is such inspiring efforts that stay embedded in the minds of those who have seen these photographs.”