How my journey started in photography!

jchauhan (54)in #introduceyourself • 6 years ago (edited)

My journey as a photographer started in 2007, my dad was a photographer back in India however he immigrated to the UK in 1989 and never picked up a camera again. Until one day my cousin wanted to learn photography so he would come over in the evenings. My dad and him would just take photos of one another and go over basic camera settings, at that point i was more concerned they had taken over the living room which was where i would kick my ball around. I think one day they must of thought lets take photos of the best looking guy in the room and my modelling career was born and pretty much ended in that living room also.

They had an old Bronicha Zenza medium format camera that they shot on. Ironically for two guys learning photography they were pretty lazy when it came to setting up the camera, lights and backdrop. I ended up doing everything and in a way picked up the basics of photography along the way.

They practised shooting for 2 years until my cousin had enough and left to end up freelancing for other wedding photographers, my dad always worked and just carried on with his job while i was just finishing school and thinking about what i wanted to do at college.

I ended up studying science as i always loved reading anything nerdy and still do till this date. However after college i hit a mental roadblock and really only just started thinking of what i wanted to do for the rest of my life. In the moment of figuring this all out i picked up that old Bronicha Zenza that had been gathering dust all these years. Thats when i found my peaceful moment it was when i was photographing i could completely express myself without the insecurities that we all have but hate to admit.

I ended up gong to university and studying photography further and to my dismay it all just turned out to be theory based work which i'm glad about now but at the time i just wanted to photograph.

So what were my hurdles as a photographer?

Firstly i had nothing to photograph or thats what i thought, i would photograph plants, insects and little bits and bobs around the house. Ironically i still do this. It's a habit i haven't broken out. I do it outside or anywhere i am, like at a restaurant, pub you name it i'll have my phones camera open.

I remember not knowing what equipment i needed and ended up buying a shit load of useless things which i thought were needed to make me a better photographer. I brought filters which i didn't really use, tripods that were more fancy than functional, even lenses that i really didn't need. At one point i had over 10 lenses now i just shoot on a 50 and 85mm predominantly. I brought flashes that i used a few times and then upgraded them because i felt i needed more power and now i find myself lighting portraits with any light i can lay my hands on.

My first serious photography gig was photographing jewellery, i would photograph products all day and realised i hated that more than anything just sitting there photographing crystals on a white background and then cutting them out on photoshop. However they needed a campaign photographed and they put together a shoot with some models, make up artist and ME as the photographer. I was so excited i spent the next 3 days googling how to actually shoot portraits i even brought a flimsy little soft box and a super long sync cable as i didn't know what radio triggers were at that time.

I wasn't stressed at all during the shoot because i didn't know what i should be stressed about, i didn't know if i was lighting things right, wrong or how i was going to process the photographs i was just blank and clicking a button at this time. I used portrait professional to retouch the images as photoshop was a blur to me. Looking back at the photographs i took i'm actually really surprised at how they came out considering this was the first time ever i had shot anyone.

From this shoot i knew i wanted to photograph people, one thing led to another and a dream team was formed or thats what we called it. A hairstylist, make up artist and me as the photographer, we would shoot a few times every month. At this point i was just thinking of the basics like where do i place the light or what lens should i use, oh boy i was such an amateur but we all start somewhere.

Over the years i just shot more and more people and just went with the flow shooting anything and one by one along the way i learnt the technical and photoshop niggles such as how to edit skin properly, or what modifiers to use, what is soft and hard light, how to shoot outside, what equipment i really need?

I can officially say i've been photographing over 10 years now as it's 2018, i've gone from photographing products, weddings, portraits, landscapes and a whole lot more and i can happily say i've tried everything. But now i'm at the second stage of all of this where i'm working out my style all the theory i learnt in university that i thought was useless is only just starting to click in place now.

I've also been dabbling in film work a lot more recently to the extent i've got a production camera sitting right next to me waiting to be used properly.

I hope to share more work on here with you all as everything i've been posting on here so far has been old work from a few years ago and now i'm nearing the end of my backlog soon.

So here's to going out and creating all over again :)

Heres some of the earliest shots i ever took from before i even knew what to shoot most of these are pre 2010. i have tried to keep them in order from the earliest to the latest. Don't judge me on these btw please :)

IMG_0925 as hyObject-1.jpg
2012