How did you get started in photography?

As a kid I used to idolize my brother, who was an avid photographer, hanging around him all the time, I got interested in photography.

Have other artists influenced your work?

Yes, to a certain extent, artists such as Picasso and Vinci still leave me gasping for more.

What made you want to specialize in this category?

Human being expressions fascinate me and I believe I am still learning, learning from everyday experiences, being in touch with people helps.

What is the most demanding shot you have ever done?

Every shoot is demanding and I enjoy every moment of my work

What is your favourite picture? (Preferably something in the Visage Collection)

Still to come……

What’s the best use of a picture that you have ever seen (an ad, a book cover, etc…)?

Hutch

Usage of digital stock imagery is gaining popularity in India. What are your views on this as a photographer?

It’s a very new concept here and I am hoping it catches on . A photographer can use his creativity and ideas freely.

How did you get started in photography?

I pursued photography as a hobby from college days. While doing my Masters in Geology I realized that I was preparing for a career, just to make a living and was not following what I enjoyed doing the most – “making images”. Photography has the right combination of science/ emotion/ art to keep me engaged and wide-eyed. My images are ‘”My way of seeing”. I went to USA to realize my dream of being a photographer. I did my Masters in Fine Arts from The Academy of Arts at San Francisco, USA.

Which artists have influenced your work?

I like the works of Henri Matisse, James Rosenquist, Van Doesburg, and Mark Rothko. I am a very early convert to digital photography. Most of my images are stored on the Raid hard-drives. All the hard drives are named after these great masters. So, when I am searching for images I imagine I am getting the images from these great masters sorry I digressed. Typically I avoid looking at the works of other photographers as a body of work. Though one can¹t miss the work of Richard Avedon, Eugine Smith and Ryzard Horowitz.

What do you like shooting the most?

I enjoy making images of conceptual still life, environmental portraits, people on location and Virtual Reality. For me concepts and emotional quotient make an image. Most of my work has strong use of color, shadows, texture, and moments.

What made you want to specialize in this category?

“To be able to tell stories”. Most of my images have a story to tell. I like to include layers in my imagery, ideas within an idea. The source of inspiration for my personal work stems from events or things that affect me, touch me.

What is the most demanding shot you have ever done?

Every shot has a different set of problems associated with it. With good pre-production most shoots are a breeze. Usually I do a test shoot before the shoot, so usually within 15 minutes of starting the day I finish the shot that the art director had visualized, then I spend time trying to better the shot.

What is your favorite picture?

Presently I am working on “Infrared Landscape imagery”. I am exhibiting this body of work from 17th to 25th of Nov at Primal Gallery, NCPA, in Mumbai. The show is stated to visit Delhi and a few other countries. I have been blown away by the response as I have been very close to the process of making these images. I pioneered the method of making these digital infrared images. It has been a very exciting journey.

These images will be available with visage in a month’s time for licensing.

What’s the best use of a picture that you have ever seen?

The Two images come to my mind…

1. The image by W Eugene Smith, Titled “Tomoko Uemura in her bath” brought awareness about Minamata (mercury poisoning). It has changed the lives of people suffering from the disease. That is the power of photography.
2. Photograph by Kim Ut, showing children with their clothes burnt off was a striking enough images to change the sentiments of the Americans. This forced the US Army to withdraw from Vietnam.

Nothing really beats the power of an image. No matter how much TV footage one sees, its constantly moving hence its impact is not the same as that of an image.

How did you get started in photography?

When I was a child, the Indian Express carried a feature on the last but one page called the “Picture of the day” by photographer S. Paul. I used to grab the paper and ruffle through the pages, starting from the last page, just to look at the image. That’s when I was captured by photography.

Only at the age of 32 did I seriously get started in photography. One of my friends was disposing his camera at a very reasonable price and I got hold of it. The journey thus began.

Who are the artists that have influenced your work?

S. Paul is definitely someone who has influenced my work. I liked the way his black and white images had a perfect mix of composition, shadow and form.

Other influencers have been Nature and Wild life photographers Jim Brandenburg and Art Wolf.

What do you like capturing the most? What made you want to specialize in this category?

Nature and Wildlife have become my favorites. I have always enjoyed traveling and when I acquired a camera, I enjoyed it more. After being introduced to Nature and Wildlife photography, I was so involved with this subject that even though I am from a commerce background, I (k)new the botanical terms of plants and nature.

What is the most interesting shot you have ever done?

There are two instances that come to mind. The first was when I was visiting Jim Corbett National Park, and quite unexpectedly we were chased by a female elephant.

The other instance was when I was visiting Rann of Kutchh. There were small ponds with very little water and I wanted to capture an image of silhouettes of birds near these water bodies at sunset. In my pursuit for the perfect angle I kept inching my way towards the birds until I saw what I wanted. I suddenly realised that the ground I was standing on was soft and I had begun to sink but I wanted that shot. So I stayed put only to sink in further. When I tried to get back I fell face down along with the camera. Luckily, the camera roll was safe!

Is there anything specific you are working on right now?

I have not been very active as a photographer for the last two years. During the dormant period, I started looking at photographs as a marketer, a designer and a consumer thereby learning to understand what is missing in my photography. I am now back to nature/wildlife photography.

An ecologist by profession, took up wildlife photography as a passion and has been living this passion for over a decade.

She is known for capturing the small unnoticed dramas that go on in life, producing results of stunning detail and clarity to illustrate her micro focus.

A few examples of this are clearly evident in the presentation that follows.

How did you get started in photography?

When I was much younger, about 10, I’d become a wild lifer: nature camps and societies, things like that. And it seemed like all serious wild lifers had cameras. So I got myself an old second-hand Minolta, some long and heavy lenses. I carried them everywhere and made some shaky and some sharp pictures, usually all bad ones.

There began a long, on now, off again affair with photography, which has settled finally into a completely absorbing passion.

What artists have influenced your work?

I don’t know if there’s any direct influence on my work, but I admire several of the Impressionist painters, Monet, Van Gogh and Degas primarily. Of the others, Matisse and Mondrian.

Among photographers, Cartier-Bresson, Feininger, Arbus, Maplethorpe and as wildlife photographers, Lanting Dalton, Rouse and ‘Nick’ Nichols.

What do you like shooting the most?

Wildlife. Not just the usual tigers, lions, elephants, the stuff that’s been done and done again. Instead the bits that everyone misses, the little adventures that go on quietly in the background, insects, birds, even plants.

What made you want to specialize in this category?

Well, it’s how I got into photography in the first place!

What is the most demanding shot you have ever done?

Most of my work is demanding, most wildlife photography is.

What is your favourite picture? (Preferably something in the Visage Collection)

It’s hard to pick a single favourite picture, but if I had to, it would be the blue and red grasshopper on the half folded mimosa leaf. It’s got a lot of the elements that for me make good images, line, balance, colour and a story!

What’s the best use of a picture that you have ever seen (an ad, a book cover, etc…)?

Michael Fay recently did a huge project for Nat Geo called Africa Megaflyover, where he flew all over Africa trying to measure the human footprint on the continent. He took pictures from the air as he flew over the continent in many spots.
These were then overlaid on the Google Earth satellite map of Africa, so you can see where each one was taken. I think it’s a stupendous way to document our world and our relationship to it!

Photography, according to Ritam Banerjee, is all about making positives out of negatives.

How did you get started in photography?

My photography started in college, with a basic 35 mm SLR camera with a 50mm normal lens and two rolls of negative film. Since then, the world has transformed into an array of faces, objects, moods and silences for me to capture on my lens.

What artists have influenced your work?

Just naming a few creators of art would be disrespect to all those artists who have been knowingly or unknowingly influencing my inner senses through their work and their presence in flesh and blood.

Its not just artists, but everyone around me – my family, my friends, my clients and at times, even those I don’t know but I just happen to come across on the streets who happen to influence me.

What do you like shooting the most?

Moments in time… any moment that freezes pictorially within the space of my frame.

What made you want to specialize in this category?

Photography is all about making positives out of negatives. Why limit the ‘positivity’ to a specific subject of so-called specialization! I am still trying to specialize in making anything and everything picturesque and photogenic. My pictures in the Visage Collection and those on my website – www.ritambanerjee.com bear testimony to the same.

What is the most demanding shot you have ever done?

Photography is not manual labor. Photography is the creation of an art-form with the tools of science. Just like art is relative, its demands are relative too. It’s not important to measure the demands of a shot by the amount of sweat, money, time, et al spent on creating the picture. What is important is to create the picture that demands attention on its own caliber.

What is your favourite picture?

The day a mother of two infants starts having her own favorite baby, I would start having ONE favorite picture of my own.

What’s the best use of a picture that you have ever seen (an ad, a book cover, etc…)?

If a picture speaks out the purpose of its usage on its own accord, I believe it’s been used to its best. If a picture in an advertisement can sell the product, if a picture on the cover of a book can draw the reader to the story, if a picture on a wall can enhance the look of a room, if a picture from the warfront published in the morning daily covers the news to the point of compelling the superpowers to call for ceasefire, if a picture in an album takes us back to our wonder years, if a picture in a tourism catalog beckons us to the extent of making us travel to the destination, if a picture in a book of history transports us back to the era bygone, if a picture helps us to discover the world beyond the visibility of the naked eye… need I say more! How about letting our pictures speak instead?

What made you want to be a photographer?

Being exposed to visual communication since early childhood (my father was a commercial artist), I had 2 strong choices;
(a) to be a designer or
(b) to be a commercial photographer.

I always liked the candidness involved in photography. Erasing and redoing what is once done isn’t my style. It had to be photography.

“Erasing and redoing what is once done isn’t my style”

What are your favorite subjects?

Still life, food and products. This covers all that I shoot! To be a successful commercial photographer one has to be genuinely interested in objects, forms and functions to do justice to every assignment. I’ve never really looked at any particular subject and treated it as my favourite.

” … one has to be genuinely interested in objects, forms and functions to do justice…”

What do you normally use when shooting Ice Cream?

While I shoot ice-cream pictures for my clients, I personally do not get greatly involved in the making of artificial ice cream, which is the food-stylist’s territory. I’m only concerned about the shape, texture, colour etc. However, I suspect it to be mixture of many substances that form a dough like material. It is then scooped out like any actual ice cream and garnished as required.

Some of your outdoor images have exotic locales. Does travel influence your work?

Most of my outdoor images have been shot in Kerala and hence the exotic look. Though I do not specialize in location work I’ve discovered the joys of shooting good location images and I hope to do more trips and images in the future.

” … I’ve discovered the joys of shooting good location images …”

What’s your favorite picture?

It’s a portfolio picture. In this picture I’d shot a close-up of an ant looking at a heaped spoon of sugar. I’d attempted to depict our human obsession with wealth. Surprising the ant simply refused to pose when I placed it on the spoon and I just managed to get a single frame out of twenty exposures. I had learnt an important lesson in a most graphic way:
An ant’s obsession with sugar isn’t the same as a man’s obsession with wealth!

How extensive is your body of work? Would you like to publish a coffee table book on food or table top photography?

My work in still-life is very extensive since being specialized in still-life, I’ve had opportunities to shoot all subjects, which has been greatly satisfying as well as challenging.

Yes. I’d definitely consider shooting for a coffee table book if some publisher has budgets big enough. Right now, I’m happy undertaking assignment for ad-agencies. The agency assignments give me tremendous creative stimulations since I get to work with many art-directors.

In all my years of advertising, I’ve come to a conclusion that most ad-agencies, clients and publishers often work on a shoestring budget while hiring creative talents. This is unfortunate, since on all such projects staying within the budget becomes the goal rather than achieving excellence in quality, content and trend setting. Most of my work is hence inspired by styles that exist abroad simply because experimentation and innovation takes a lot of time and money.

What are your other interests and pastimes? Does photography leave you room for other hobbies?

Photography does leave me enough room to enjoy time with friends, family, travel etc.
My profession is not my obsession and I believe in leaving my photography back in my studio once I finish and go home.

What was the guiding philosophy of Studio Times?
Nihal Fernando took photographs for advertising, annual reports, brochures, etc and channelled his profits into travelling the many pathways of Lanka, photographing the land and its people and their way of life, the ancient monuments and its natural wonders. Over the years, many like-minded people have joined his team at Studio Times Ltd and following in his footsteps have helped build the best Image Library in the country.
The mantle has now passed onto his daughter Anu Weerasuriya, and the present team of photographers include Christopher Silva, Maxwell Decker, Roshan Perret, Ben Samarasinghe and Devaka Seneviratne

What are the goals of Studio Times as an organization?

Its business focus is advertising and commercial photography and the provision of a quality printing service to the amateur and professional photographer. Two of its unofficial aims, however, are the development and promotion of photography as an art form and the creation of an awareness and appreciation of Sri Lanka’s heritage – that is, its natural, archaeological and cultural wealth.

What projects have been Undertaken by Studio Times?

The Studio Times work ethic however is not confined to merely “making” photographs. Reference books and one-inch maps, note books and gps’ are part and parcel of their gear and they do not merely see images, they know nitty gritty facts about their subject matter and feel for them. They want to share their knowledge, create an appreciation of all that is wonderful in their country and conserve and preserve it all.

This is the unofficial objective of Studio Times and this has resulted in several exhibitions, publications and regular features in the newspapers.

You have many book publications which one has been the most interesting to work on ?
The most interesting, arduous and exhilarating project we have worked on is the book we are currently working on – Eloquence in Stone, The Lithic Saga of Sri Lanka.

With words and photographs the book tells the tale of Sri Lanka’s stone heritage through the ages – the saga of an island people who are heirs to one of the oldest living cultures in the world. A people who still speak the same language, practice the same religion as their ancestors did 2,500 years ago and whose life in the far-flung villages remains much the same as it did centuries before.

We have realised that we are not merely taking photographs for a book, we are documenting a heritage that is disappearing, at times ravaged by nature and more often vandalised by man, all we may have left may be the photographs and Eloquence in Stone.

He is an Image Engineer who can not only create the right image mood and setting for any brand, but also visualize the impact and returns that an image will get for his clients, in the long term. And this comes from having been doing just this for over two decades with remarkable success.

How and when did you get started in photography?
Started by stealing a practically unused camera-Yashica-Minister D, belonging to my father from the almirah. Fiddled around enough with it by myself to figure out focusing etc., after getting a couple of briefings from friends who knew how to load film into a camera, I was off. All my pocket money in school used to go into 2 rolls of B & W films and processing and printing of 1 roll on B2 size pix. Prints from the other roll used to be funded by money that I flicked while buying vegetables for the house.

Have there been artists who have influenced your work?

Not Artists per se. Although I did start drawing and painting at school under my art teacher Ambadas Muhurkar, it was photographers like George Silk, Avedon, Beaton , Haas, Salgado and a host of others who left an impression on me.

What do you like capturing the most and what made you want to specialize in this category?

EMOTIONS! All the while. And since people are very emotional and I could get a plate of idli to look emotional too, I began to like fashion and small product and editorial photography.

The attraction to fashion also stemmed from the fact that I could get close to all those pretty girls!

You have recently done an assignment for Visage Media Services, what can you say about it – the challenges, the ideas, the evolution of a story line?

Ashok (the Creative Director at Visage Media Services) is a great guy to work with simply because he thinks! So I’m rather happy to be doing any work through him as it can lead to some very satisfying work and a regular meal of Irani samosas and chai.

What are your thoughts on the concept of digital pre-shot imagery?

Lets say some folks like store made trousers while others want tailor made.

What is the most demanding shot you have ever done?

Every one of my shots is demanding. If it isn’t you’ll watch me wandering around with a vacuous look

What’s the best use of a picture that you have ever seen (an ad, a book cover, etc…)?

MY NEXT ONE!