My Interest in Science Made Me Explore Photography - Abhishek S N (Photographer)

There are no limits for doing business, if you are passionate about making money through photography. It could be a simple idea like renting out your skill of photography for a day

1. Tell us about your background and journey.

Hello Everyone. My journey has been basically all about listening to my heart and going where it asks me to go. It has been all about proving that happiness is all about the experience of journey towards the destination and never just about the destination.

I am basically from Bengaluru. I was a resident of Jayanagar and Vijayanagar areas of Bengaluru during my childhood. I have done my Bachelor of Engineering course and Masters of Science course too, in Computer Science.

I have worked as a software engineer at Cisco systems for 10 years.

Apart from all these, I always had interest in storytelling. I also used to sing a little bit (without any formal training) during my school/college days. These interests made me love the art of making cinema. I started off writing reviews of kannada movies on my own website during 2006. These activities then got me opportunities to meet film makers and music composers, through which I was involved in a few kannada films as co-writer.

My interest in music made me explore music composing and music production, which led to me producing my own music album Neralaagi. I also continued to work as a music director for a few movies. All of these, while working for my company, Cisco systems.

My interest in science made me explore Photography a lot during 2010 and hence I started doing serious photography post-2014. When I realized that I had too many parallel interests, I decided to quit my job as a software engineer and continue my journey in the field of art.

2.How and when did you realize your passion for photography?

During 2005, I had a small point & shoot digital camera, As I was always excited about concepts of Light, it gave me a lot of joy in using that small point & shoot camera in better ways. As couple of years rolled by, I got married and I bought a bigger point & shoot camera to get some better output. I used to use my camera basically for trips with friends only. 

When I started posting my clicks of the trips on facebook during 2010, a lot of people used to appreciate my sense of photography and the Framing it involved. This motivated me more to try my hand in photography on a different scale. This pushed me to buy a DSLR camera during 2012. I started trying out various settings and started playing with light more. Looking at the flexibility to control the kind of pictures you can take using a  DSLR camera while I always used Auto modes on point & shoot camera before this, made me more excited.

By this time, I already had a lot of friends in the film industry. A few actresses gave me the idea that I could photograph them too, for a change. While I clicked one of them, the other friend also asked me to click her. This continued for sometime & I started clicking the actresses/models I knew one by one.

Instagram was at its baby stage then, and I started using the platform to post my pictures. I upgraded myself to a better DSLR camera. This gave me more hold on the kind of pictures I could click. Slowly the appreciation on Instagram / Facebook increased and this motivated me to learn using Artificial lights for my photography. All this just happened as an evolution, and it was not like, I planned any of these to become a photographer ultimately.

So, in this way, before I realized that I had passion for photography, I was already being called a "photographer" on social media.

3. What are some tips you would like to share with amateur photographers?

The only tip I could give them is that they should believe that every photographer is different and has something special in him. It is all about using that speciality more often in their pictures. It could be in terms of Color Tones, or it could be in terms of Framing, or it could be in terms of the concept of the photography or anything for that matter. One has to identify what they truly wanna show on the Frame and try to make it their speciality.

4. What are the important skills one should have to be a successful photographer?

Apart from understanding Light, understanding Lens, understanding other basics of photography like Aperture blah blah, I believe, it is the Common sense, which has to be strong enough in comparison to others, to be a successful photographer. This common sense even includes the ability to market themselves as a successful photographer to others ;) !

5. What are various opportunities available for aspiring photographers?

There are no limits for doing business, if you are passionate about making money through photography. It could be a simple idea like renting out your skill of photography for a day, to a complex idea like renting out all the services around photography to a client.

6. Which is your favourite book and why?

what could be better addictive than facebook today ? ;) haha !

Abhishek S N -  Photographer

Interview by - N.MURALI KRISHNA