Takeaways from a talk.

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over the last nine years i’ve shot 600

plus events in 18 plus countries

mainly i shoot music festivals and also

bollywood movies i work with corporate

clients as well

music festival is my first love in

photography

and these are the festival which i’ve

shot

for tomorrowland which is world’s

largest music festival i’ve shot for

various

artists uh since 2015 in belgium

sunburn festival which is the largest

festival in asia

and also the most famous in india i’ve

been shooting officially for them since

2011. germany strong festival china

and so on and so forth some of the

festivals i’ve shot for the festival

some have shot for the artist and some

for others

the images which i make for them some of

them

are your one of my favorite images is on

the

bottom left tomorrow in belgium also

spring wave sunset in taiwan is

another favorite of mine i also shoot

directly for the artist uh various kind

of artists there are

stand-up comedians that are dj’s that

are singles

pjs sneaker who’s a really famous

worldwide i’ve been blessed to work with

uh

indian artists also like dj shan shirley

satya

chaitis lost stories these are some of

the

work and some of the people who i work

from the music industry

and the event industry apart from this i

also

shoot for bollywood movies and

ns10 hasido fasi gom k2 ugly was

my first official movie i’ll talk about

it unofficial movie

kung ketu was with nawazuddin pagal

amazing experience last year with anil

kapoor john abram

in london and anushka sharma and nh10

hassiru patsy was the first official

movie which i shot

to start with imagine

you’re in a cold dark auditorium

sitting with hundreds of others in the

audience

turn by turn speakers come in

and share their experience and knowledge

with you

what do you anticipate an idea

inspiration or even learning how they

did a particular thing

this was me 11 years back sitting in an

animation seminar

only because i was anticipating good

storytelling

and i love listening to good stories

also because my friends were sitting in

the same auditorium

one of the speakers who was an animator

demonstrated

a live painting session now light

painting

before this was utterly alien to me and

neither was photography

a medium interesting for me

so but evidently this session

became the point where the journey

the pursuit of learning photography

began for me

now why i was sitting at an animation

seminar and not an engineering or a

medical

seminar let’s rewind a few years

as a kid i loved or

tried playing tabla flute

synthesizer and the only instrument

which i have decently played was guitar

along with music i also was fond of

computers and technology

so when it came to the career choice the

obvious

plan a for me was software engineering

and the plan b for me was music

never did i ever dream of not just dream

or not

not even think of becoming a

photographer or a cinematographer

so after 10th i stumbled into science

to get myself into a degree college

afterwards

which changed and for my co-curricular

i became a dj playing at private parties

at the age of 16 i made good money

becoming a dj and like playing at

private parties

but as the life events turned out

i did not qualify for the degree college

in engineering

so i decided to leave the mainstream

behind and

learn animation to develop my creative

and

storytelling skills and that is how

i ended up sitting at an animation

seminar

in front of a speaker

who spoke about light painting

for those who don’t know what is a light

painting this is what light painting is

and this was my first attempt at light

painting

the curiosity to learn light painting

and how you can paint

using light as a brush got me into

learning basics of photography

my dad after i did my basic schooling

and photography

somehow was really impressed with me and

gave me my first camera

the first day when the camera came home

one of the friends who had made in my

guitar class two years back

was playing at a campus college

in mumbai with kunal ganjawala so i

decided to

visit him with my new camera

with all excitement to unbox and use my

new first camera

i reached the gates of the venue now

10 years back photography was not so

much in trend

so when i reached the gates of the venue

with my camera

the official uh committee the organizing

committee thought i was the official

photographer

so they not just let me in they let me

around the entire venue and also on the

stage

i was self-invited i did not buy a

ticket

but i got to go on the stage because the

committee thought i was the

official photographer now this

was the first concert of my life

and i saw girls crying at kunal

ganjavala’s

songs i saw people laughing

getting on the bench and dancing there

was so much energy and so much emotion

i was enchanted not by the music

but by the visuals of it the way people

behaved the way people reacted to music

and these are the images which i shot

at my first concert this is a friend

who’s laughing

who did not have a slightest idea that

the image which i was shooting was blur

i did not know how to shoot

properly and no not not that my internet

is unstable not neither is your internet

is unstable

the images are blurred and they are out

of focus so these are the images which i

shot at the first festival

but i did not know how to shoot at a

music festival or a concert but

for me the energy and the vibe of it

was unbelievable so soon afterwards i

contacted a friend

who used to manage a famous indian

indie band called euphoria and i asked

him can i come over and

shoot euphoria performing he happily

invited me over

now mind you this was not to get myself

the fame of social media uploads

do not shoot for money and to

not for the greed for getting the access

of stage

this was only to capture the energy the

emotion and the vibe

to play around with lights so i went

ahead and i shot

the band a couple of times now this

was as an audience even though i was

i knew the manager i was shooting as an

audience the entire event

soon after i tasted the blood so i

started

going around different cities and

different festivals as an audience

just to shoot the music can be anything

but i wanted to capture the vibe of the

place

so i went to nf7 and like you know

different different festivals around the

time

now with my curiosity to learn light

painting

the same curiosity gifted me the

technical

skills to understand how light works

so the same technical skills and the

social media presence got me my first

paying assignment in photography with

the mumbai international airport

to shoot their unique art program i was

a teenager

one of the youngest on the team working

with prominent

artists around the country now the same

art program is still available at

terminal 2 in mumbai

and i’m really proud that like at a

young age

i got to shoot and archive and document

the entire process

so after the mumbai international

airport project

completed i was presented with another

opportunity

one of my friend who was shooting stills

for a bollywood movie called ugly by

anurag kashyap

he had fallen sick so he asked me radin

can you go and

replace me for a couple of days and i

happily went over

and that is how my journey for bollywood

for shooting bollywood also began

finally it was uh the day after diwali

gujarati new year and the shoot was

next to kubristan so when i went uh

and asked the rickshaw guy to like you

know take me to kubristan he was

laughing that’s

that is where my journey for bollywood

for shooting bollywood began next to a

kabristan

so over the 40-day schedule of shooting

for ugly

i must have shot for three days when the

movie went to khan’s film festival

the producers ended up using all my

images

for the brochure for the movie brochure

these are the images which i had shot in

two three days and i had no clue what to

shoot how to shoot

i just went along with the flow

as it turns out with that the producers

were

happy with me and they helped me with

another two three movies they hired me

for hasita fussy after that

and i ended up shooting for eight

different movies

for the marketing and their poster

stills gom ketu

and queen hasido fasi ugly

aniston wazir ribbon

along with the movies and the

music concerts which i attended as an

audience

i used to participate in a lot of

photography contest

and one of my photos was selected to be

exhibited at the national

art gallery in hyderabad in 2011

i was amongst the 12 photographers

selected in the country

to have his work exhibited at the

gallery

in 2012 sunburn festival posted

on their facebook that they are looking

for photographers

and i jumped right in i sent them the

work which i was shooting for last two

years attending as an audience and they

loved my work

they got me to shoot their small small

events and

smaller arenas right away from four

years back

being a dj behind the turntables

i started shooting the biggest names in

the music industry worldwide

how the turntables this

were the images which i first shot

for a decently sized arena

at goa dj guetta was playing

and as i mentioned photography 10 years

back was not

so much in trend so evidently music

photography

was far lesser in trend and people

didn’t know much about it

my struggle was to find a starting point

when you shoot fashion or landscape or

products

you see so many photos and so many

reference points around

this is 10 years back i think instagram

was just starting so

even then instagram was not so widely

used

so to me i wanted

to get a reference point so i referred

to

international music photographers

because in indian industry there was

only one photographer who i knew

who used to shoot rock festivals rock me

rock music events

and the way rock bands perform and the

djs perform the entire setup is very

different

so i went on to uh research on

international music photographers

and the struggle over there also was the

way the lights were

internationally the way the production

was internationally was

unique and was different from the indian

style

the way people engaged to the

photographers was very unique and very

different

over the years we have developed and

some way we are still the same

but for me to get the starting point and

to make good images

when you are hired and when you are paid

to shoot

and make the concert look beautiful

was a struggle so day by day

event by event i developed myself

and soon afterwards someone got me on

board for almost all their events and

all their festivals

and i went on to shoot their festivals

around the

country now these festivals

when you see the music can be very

different

i do not specifically listen to dance

music all the time

i might have really few dance music

songs on my phone as well

but for me as i mentioned the visuals

were the

key for me the storytelling part of it

when

you see the dj playing a song and people

put on their hands people put on their

flashlights and cry

for the confetti they look in awe

at events you don’t have any control at

music festivals you don’t having any

control over anything

just like in life the dj’s

you don’t know which song are they going

to play next

you don’t know how the audience will

engage or react to the particular song

you don’t know when the lights will go

on and off and when the

fireworks will go on and off but the

emotion of it

the energy the enthusiasm the vibe of it

it is like a candy shop for me and i was

a kid

now mind you this wasn’t my passion

few years back it was just what i saw

and what i connected to

so soon after i started shooting and

touring with different artists and

for different music festivals around the

country and in 2014

with one of my really good friends dj

shan i got an opportunity to

shoot to go and shoot at china and

before that in hong kong

for a music festival it’s

these festivals i connected with

different artists and they loved my work

they liked the way i worked as well and

they

called me at different places to shoot

for them and that’s where the journey

for tomorrowland began

a music blog from india wanted to shoot

the styling at tomorrowland which is the

world’s last largest festival in belgium

so they hired me to shoot the styling

the fashion

treatment at tomorrowland in 2015.

along with that a few artists who i knew

were playing at the festival

so they invited me over to shoot for

them as well

and that’s where the journey for

tomorrowland in 2015 began

over the years i’ve shot

more than 100 artists directly for them

600 events as i mentioned now these

festivals and

the energy and why the artist which i

shot with i hadn’t

connected to them few years back

this entire thing started for me with

one single session which was

light painting now not that i was

anticipating

to learn or to be inspired or to be

motivated by anything

the entire reason for me to come back to

the light painting

is that i wasn’t anticipating anything

the speaker before me

the speaker after me or me

can you might not connect or connect

with whatever we say

but even if you take away one thing from

the incidents which happens in your life

and you cling on to it

you connect to it you put on your heart

blood and soul to it somewhere down the

line

you learn how and where to reach in your

life

from being an engineer from an aspiring

engineer

to become an animator a storyteller i

became a photographer

and a cinematographer and this was the

session

this is the image from the same

seminar which i was attending and which

i’m talking about

you can see me sitting right here

so again imagine yourself

sitting in one of the auditoriums it’s

cold and it’s dark

you might take away something and you

should take away something

thank you