How I met my clients: Studio of molten gold

Parking. A new age hassle of the enchanting city life. Our roads and spaces can no longer take our growing need to be mobile, If you’ve ever tried to park in the bustling lanes of Shahpur Jat, a small urban village in the heart of New Delhi you know what an overwhelmingly frustrating and draining exercise it can be.

Utterly irritated from one such battle I found myself climbing up a compact flight of stairs in the narrow lanes of Shahpur Jat. I’m met with the white stairs flushed in light and a tall, sprawling Areca palm, I sometimes find myself marvelling at the unforgiving Delhi summer.

Somewhat sweaty and out of breath I enter a room. Met with a single eye of Masterji, rising above the borders of his spectacles to take a look at the visitor, I am able to gasp out, Chetan!

Out comes this beautiful boy, whose grace and charm fill the room immediately.

I have come to discuss a possible shoot for his label Ulupi and he shows me around his studio that doubles up as his home.

Masterji by now has managed a shy namaste and is back to cutting his patterns, two other karigars as they are called also go about their chores non chalantly. I can’t help but feel the positivity of this place. Beige jute curtains, solid wood book shelf straight out of my grandfather’s living room, its an instant calm to my otherwise fried nerves.

I am ushered into a smaller room, set in the hues of natural wood, I realise its my grace man’s haven. Our spaces are so fluid, they take the shape and energy of who we are as people. As he spoke, I am busy absorbing this space. Natural wood desk with neatly arranged stationery sitting elegantly on it. How each piece was thoughtfully placed and how something as simple as a desk could make for a visual delight. Behind me was a Sahoo painting, a nude man whose face is covered with the book he’s reading.

Corner of my mind was already occupied with a fascination for his clothes, perfectly arranged on a stand. Indian wear in earthy pastel shades with gold and silver borders. Not the shouting in your face gold, the quiet, gleam9ng kinds. It reminded me of my grandmother’s kitchen, where pots and pans of brass and copper shone like treasures in the afternoon sun. Memories are a funny thing, they come stumbling down like loose boulders on a slope and make you travel time right in the middle of a meeting.

As I sat in my wooden chair, the kind we had in boarding school, I was amazed by how this space held me. Such is the power of art, when art flows into your life it shows in what you do and how you move and what you touch, it renders itself into your being.

This man was art himself.

As he stooped over his desk riser and carefully examined his calendar for a free date to lock in the shootI noticed his crooked fingers for the first time. Something that I tease him for even today.

That afternoon in the studio of gold was the beginning of some fabulous images and a life long friendship.

Creativity - That illusive Magical word

As a photographer, being creative is my job. I’m expected to be at my supreme creative self when on assignment and churn out ideas like an unstoppable machine gun gone on a wild shooting spree.

There’s also this particular way my brain behaves. Ideas will keep floating aimlessly in my brain at free will but just when someone asks for one, I hit an instant coma. Blank. While I may look like I’m internally in deep thought and focusing myself to give you the greatest earth shattering idea of all times, my brain has switched off to thinking very critical matters like did I leave the fan on while leaving home or could Harry Potter be written differently?

So when I’m asked to think and be creative, that’s my least creatively productive time. If this is not the case with you, well, hats off. Do read this though.

As a coping mechanism, I frantically look for ideas. “Referencing” as we call it. Pinterest, Behance and other lords of images are summoned. Portfolios are scanned, websites of other photographers licked clean, and what looks like the best bet to pitch for a brief is chosen, of course with changes and tweaks to the original idea to avoid all confrontation with old friend Mr Guilt.

While this approach mostly solves problems in the mood board room, Mr Guilt always finds a way to say hi. What happened to originality? How will I find my own unique voice and artistic expression if my ideas aren’t original to begin with?

The answers came after years or turmoil. Creativity is practice.

Practice. Verb.

It is something that you do every single day. It is somewhat like building a town. You build roads, housing blocks, parks, hospitals, theaters. You make an environment for your ideas to exist and flourish. You make an infrastructure of imagination so well oiled and coordinated that you only have to tap that environment gently and ideas will perennially generate and flow. Original ideas. Your ideas.

So how do we build this world and aura of creativity?

Document. Verb.

Saw this gorgeous pattern the light shaped with leaves on a wall. Take a picture and log it. Saw a beautiful scene in a movie that moved you. Take a screen shot and log it. Not important deconstructing what and why you liked in it at this point. It is important that the documentation is done at one place for easy access and retrieval. I can write so I document in a notebook. I carry it with me everywhere and these aimlessly floating ideas in my mind now have a physical form, of words and silly diagrams and screenshots in my phone.

I even document memories, they are a very important part of my creative practice. Rita, a cow I grew up with on my farm became the central theme of a fashion story I did, decades later. The images got published in an international fashion magazine because the idea was so personal and original.

Your personality, your experiences and your life in general will shape your creative Eco-system. Observe it, embrace it and document it. Your next great idea will come from whats happening to you, around you and how you choose to respond to it.

So how do you use this bible of ideas that you’ve created? Remember the screen shot from the movie scene? Behind the character was a red lamp illuminating her hair and the window of her room in a certain way. [Mah imagination, Mah rules, its a lady in the scene]. That could be your lighting inspiration for the next food shoot. At least that can be the starting point.

Nurture your universe of ideas, put experiences in it, put history and culture in it. Put things in it that spark your joy. Things that illuminate your mind. Don’t worry if it has cats, politics and quantum physics at the same time.

Magic will happen.

Why Should You Choose To Be A Photographer?

I certainly didn’t choose photography for a career, It chose me.

It chose me because I allow things to fully consume me, till they possibly can and there’s hardly any room left for reason or consequences. If you, however, are a normal, rational, assessing risk and reward sort of human being and are confused about why you should dive into the world of cameras and lights, this is for you.

There’s no easy way to say this. It is difficult.

It is bone crushing pressure in the beginning when you’re starting out. It is hauntingly difficult when you have a business to run. It is another ball game difficult if you become a top notch photographer and intend to be at the top of your game. Well, so is becoming an aeronautical engineer, weightlifting or a career in selling handmade soaps.

Its all about choosing your difficult.

Here’s a checklist of questions I put together, to help you inch closer to the answer.

1. Do you need an umbrella of a steady income?

   We all do, but will you break if that doesn’t happen a few months in a year?

2. Can you run a business?

   We’re all not born with business leading skills but can you adapt and get your head around filing taxes, client servicing, constant following up on payments, advertising and social media? As a photographer you’re often juggling between multiple roles to run a successful business front.

3. Can you commit to 7-8 years of uncertainty?

   Uncertainty not only in terms of money but regular flow of work. This is an average figured from my experience as a commercial photographer. It can differ depending upon one’s personal journeys. There might be months on end till someone hires you. Are you willing to commit to those times in constantly building on your craft and upping your game?

You’ve to be Rocky Balboa to survive as a photographer. Keep getting back at your feet every time you get punched down, no matter how brutally you’ve been hit, you find your strength and get back. Its more like a marathon run, results don’t show in short terms.

I also have a formula for answering when you shouldn’t choose photography at all. I know it is foolproof.

Do not choose photography if every now and then you’re not wholly consumed by the magic of this medium. Do not choose photography if you’re standing in a busy street and your head is not overflowing with frames you could create. Do not choose photography if you haven’t fallen helplessly in love with the magnificence and the grandeur of light. How it looks on a cold winter morning or a shimmery summer afternoon. How it shapes things around you and how it can make feelings feel.

If you’ve ever found yourself in an incessant, urgent, fiery and gnawing need to photograph something, anything and this feeling grows like an ever hungry Labrador inside you, you my friend, have found your calling in life.