TELLING THE STORY OF GOA'S BEAUTY... IN PICTURES
By Frederick Noronha

He may be a businessman, but he loves beauty. Thousands of his picture post-cards have criss-crossed the globe. And Thomas Vaz is so fascinated by cameras that he named one of his sons Canon.

Since he started photographing colonial Goa in the late 'fifties as a teenager, Thomas Vaz (59) has not only collected a large number of scenic shots. Photography has also gifted him a number of recountable-tales that tell a story of the changing Goa.
 
Once, he got locked in Se Cathedral at lunch-time. Vaz of course was busy photographing away. He had to struggle to attract the attention of the attendant, to get freed. "I was not scared of course. If I was kept in, there would have been more time to get the subject," he reminisces.

Vaz has to his credit an unusual photograph of the Mangueshi temple. He stooped low below one of the arches in the tank below the temple. "I was almost sleeping, and touched my head right back to the wall," says he. Lo behold, he's got a scenic dark arch framing the picturesque temple in Ponda.

Again, at Dona Paula, Vaz once found that the photograph he was taking from Pescador was too flat in its foreground. He got a traditional fisherman to pose in a passing canoe. At the right spot, he had to desperately wave out to him, and get him to stop at the right place. Click! And that became another view-card.

Easier said than done, of course. Tons of hard work went into all this.
 
Vaz is a business partner of the prominent PVV business house, known for its confectionaries and off-beat wines, among other products.

His romance with photography was an accident. It all started when he asked a photographer to record his sport team's performance, as a young lad. But that photographer simply failed to deliver; and Vaz was disappointed to learn that the film given to him had been misused for someone else's photographs.

That disappointment led Vaz to ask his friend, "How much does a camera cost?" For Rs 25 -- a princely sum in those days -- they got one, and began the first Sunday by shooting four rolls of film.

Vaz  started  photography at the age of 14, at a time  when  film  cost Rs 1.25 per roll, and Sousa-Paul, Saldanha and Mauzo used to be the premier photographers in Goa. Soon, in an inter-school competition, he won a first prize, which really thrilled him. Photography for Vaz has been a strictly-on-Sundays affair for
many years. Simply because he would not like it to impinge on his family or business.

Earlier too, when a young lad, the family-curfew hour as fixed at 11 am on Sundays. Without realising it then, this hour perhaps helped to improve Vaz's photographs, he now feels, simply because it meant he avoided the harsh noon-day overhead shadows.

At first, he took photographs without his dad's knowledge. One  day, his dad was surprised to find a box-camera roll out of his bag, as he entered hom. On seeing the pictures taken by him, Vaz's impressed dad offered to buy him a new camera!

After his early awards, and reputation with the camera, the news soon spread. "For any function, I was being invited. I would take photographs and present it to the host. Later on I came to know that I was wasting my money. The invites came because I was anyway always going with my camera," says he with a mischevious
twinkle of the eye.

In an All Goa Photo Exhibition in 1960, he won the top prize. But soon the family business harkened, and he found himself preoccupied with that.
 
During a visit to Europe, Vaz was proud to say that he came from Goa. To his dismay, most didn't even know of the place, and only when they saw the photographs, they appreciated its beauty. That spurred him on to published his dozens of different view-cards and a book. In all, Vaz put out as many as 167 unique view-card
designs on sale in the market.

Getting into view-cards was another accident. One day's business visit to the family business run by his brother at Panjim saw him walk into the Mandovi by chance. There he got discussing with 'Tall Satish' the economics of view-cards.
 
One thing led to the other, he was quick to visit the Anjuna Flea Market, pick up an SLR (single-lens reflex) camera there, and things then moved swiftly forward. For five to six years, his view-cards did brisk business.
 
One fine morning in 1979, Vaz recalls getting a notice from the DAVP (Directorate of Audio Visual Publicity), an Indian government body, saying that a postcard of his had been selected for a national award.  
 
His friends and colleagues encouraged him to go to Delhi in November 1979 for the award. It was unfortunately cancelled, as Jayaprakash Narayan had just died. Once again, friends -- he
particularly names people like Sanvordekar -- urged him to get back to Delhi, despite all the additional time and inconvenience.

Vaz believes his post-cards have made Goa known, by portraying its historic churches, temples, colourful fairs and festivals and pagents.

Publishing his book was a saga in itself. Convincing Frank Simoes to write the foreward was another task, though after some cajoling and persistence the busy ad-man from Bombay eventually obliged, and gracefully too.
 
Thomas Vaz's long-sized book 'Goa Images and Impressions' -- which came out in a second edition in 1993, has fascinated many a reader. On the back-cover is a photograph of a cock atop a typically old-style tiled Goan roof. What's the story behind it?
 
One day while eating a meal at his in-laws, he saw this bird perched atop the roof. It struck him as a great photograph. Vaz quickly threw some grains atop the roof. Not only the cock stay there longer, but he actually crowed. Click!
 
During the CHOGM-Retreat time in 1983, Vaz got a chance to click some good photographs. At that time, all the monuments in Old Goa were in very good shape, and neatly spruced, sparkling white. Unlike the moss-covered look they otherwise often have.
 
Vaz feels that, by now, he has got the patter right. If he wants to take a photograph, nobody says no to him. "That's achieved by using the right attitude and the correct words," says he. He remembers times when colour-developing meant a six to seven delay in Goa.  A far-cry from the one-hour services now available.
 
What goes into photography? To Vaz, it's more than luck. It also means scientific hard-work and concentration. Says he: "I feel one requires a powerful sense of observation, presence of mind and above all alertness."

Amateur photographs plan to launch a photo club on Saturday Oct 9 at 4.30. Do drop in if interested: Kala Academy, Panjim. Details from arvind@goa1.dot.net.in  or fred@vsnl.com

You can contact Thomas Vaz c/o cedric@goa1.dot.net.in