When award-winning photographer M. Palani Kumar speaks about photography, he rarely begins with cameras or composition. Instead, he asks, “Who tells your story?”
The lives of Dalit and marginalised communities have been photographed and documented largely by outsiders for centuries. Their labour has been the subject of exhibitions and coffee-table books, yet they rarely get to write their own stories. Kumar is trying to change that.
Over nearly a decade as a documentary photographer, Kumar has built a model to train young people from these communities to become photographers, journalists and storytellers in their own right. Through the People’s Photographers Collective (PPC), which he began informally around five years ago before registering it as a Chennai-based trust last year, cameras have found their way into villages in Ramanathapuram, fishing hamlets in Nagapattinam, sanitation workers’ colonies in Madurai, Dalit neighbourhoods in Chennai and, more recently, tribal communities in central India.
Kumar initially purchased the cameras with his savings. As the initiative grew, supporters began donating used equipment. Today, almost every camera used by the Collective is secondhand.
The outcome of his work was visible at an exhibition titled Lives Among the Palms, held at Lalit Kala Akademi in Chennai (10-16 July). It brought together photographs made over two years by seven class XII students from Sayalkudi in Ramanathapuram district. Their images document the lives of palm climbers: men high above the ground, women weaving palm leaves, children pushing water carts, drought-hit landscapes, and families whose lives continue to revolve around one of Tamil Nadu’s oldest occupations.
Kumar insists the exhibition was only the visible part of a much longer journey. “We don’t go there, conduct a workshop and leave,” he says. That philosophy shapes every workshop the Collective undertakes. The Collective comprises about 35 senior student members, six or seven of whom are trustees. Many former students now work as photographers, journalists and photography instructors. The Collective primarily works with students from class IX onwards and runs long-term courses that typically last a year to 18 months.
Before a camera is handed over, Kumar and his colleagues liaise with organisations rooted in the community. In Ramanathapuram, they partnered with the Rural Workers’ Development Society to identify youngsters interested in photography. The team travelled to the village every month and stayed for two-three days at a time, introducing students to photography, camera handling, visual storytelling and documentation.
At first, the students were asked to photograph whatever interested them. That proved unexpectedly difficult. Growing up amid palm groves, water scarcity, seasonal migration and daily labour, the children saw these as part of life, not stories. “They don’t immediately recognise that their own lives contain stories,” Kumar says. Changing that perspective takes time.
For two years, the Collective returned every month, spending several days reviewing photographs, discussing ideas and helping the students build visual narratives. Between visits, images travelled back and forth over WhatsApp, discussing framing, storytelling and following a subject over time.
Photography is only the entry point. The workshops eventually move into writing; participants are taught to build photo essays and report stories. For the Collective, involvement extends well beyond the classroom. It provides cameras, computers and in some cases, arranges accommodation for those who move to Chennai to pursue journalism.
Former students now conduct workshops alongside him and members of the Collective teach photography in government schools across 28 districts in Tamil Nadu. What began with one photographer has gradually become a network of mentors producing the next generation of visual storytellers. Kumar believes that is the real measure of success: “I don’t want to remain the only teacher.”
Among them is journalist and documentary photographer Subagomathi Muppidathi. She first met Kumar two years ago in Chennai during a government school photography project and is today a trustee of the Collective. “Palani anna constantly returns to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s call to educate, agitate and organise,” she says. “That is a reminder to students that receiving an opportunity also means creating opportunities for others.”
Over the last year, Subagomathi has travelled to Sayalkudi two or three times every month, to review photographs and mentor students whose works now form Lives Among the Palms. The workshops, she says, were conducted free of cost. “We didn’t receive funding from any NGO. From travel expenses to everything else, we bore it ourselves. People kept asking us how much we were getting paid. When we told them we weren’t earning anything and were doing it voluntarily, they couldn’t understand why.”
The journeys reveal the realities documented by the photographs. “There is no bus to the village,” she says. “Every visit meant spending around ₹1,000 on auto-rickshaws. Even for the children, travelling to school costs ₹80 a day.”
For the children, daily life continued alongside photography. After school, many complete household chores and fetch water for their families. Cameras accompanied them as they pushed water carts through the village. Those moments also produced some of the most difficult conversations. “The women and the children would ask, ‘You keep coming here to photograph and make videos. After this exhibition, will our village finally get water?’” For Subagomathi, the question remains a reminder of both the possibilities and the limits of documentary work.
Over the years, the Collective has worked with fisherwomen, children of sanitation workers, Dalit youth, palm workers and tribal communities in Madhya Pradesh. Yet the underlying principle remains unchanged. Kumar rejects the familiar journalistic phrase about being “a voice for the voiceless”. “The objective is to create a space for those who have historically been represented by others to become their own storytellers.”
That philosophy has helped him find an institutional partner in the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI). For Kumar, PARI’s contribution goes well beyond funding exhibitions. It provides an editorial platform where the students’ stories can be published, ensures contributors are paid for their work and creates a pathway through which documentary photography can become sustainable. In a world where it is hard to generate an income from visual storytelling, publication and remuneration become essential.
This year, seven photographers mentored by the Collective received the TM Krishna-PARI Award 2026, recognising outstanding work at the intersection of art and journalism.
The People’s Photographers Collective now supports more than 50 students, has conducted over 10 grassroots workshops and organised more than six exhibitions, despite continuing to struggle with limited cameras, computers and funding.
At the Lalit Kala Akademi, visitors paused before photographs of palm climbers silhouetted against the sky, women at work, children carrying water and landscapes marked by drought. The images spoke of labour, climate change, migration and survival. But perhaps their greatest significance lies elsewhere.
For generations, these communities appeared before someone else’s lens. Today, they are telling their own stories.
Kavitha Muralidharan is a bilingual journalist from Tamil Nadu with over two decades of experience covering the state’s politics, arts and cultural history.