Everyone starts somewhere, and this dictum applies to me, too. When I started photography, I did not have any direction. I walked all over Bombay, exploring genres and techniques with no thought. Whether it was still life work, sitting in bushes attempting to shoot butterflies or the plants, doing street photography, doing some travel work in nearby areas, or experimenting with rubbish like star filters, I tried everything within striking distance.
People ask me what genre of photography they ought to focus on, and I advise them to spend a few months photographing various subjects. I then suggest they analyze their images to spot a trend. Do their pictures contain a preponderance of family photographs, street imagery, travel, portraits, still life, or any other genre? I agree that shooting landscapes or wildlife is rarely workable for a newbie. However, if you read a lot about nature or wildlife, watch movies, or study them, the chance of you drifting in this direction is high.
I grew up in the Indian hills and loved mountains and rivers. If I were to rewind time, the probability of me becoming a landscape and nature photographer is high. It so happens that I shoot landscapes when I travel into the hills, and I seem to excel at photographing rivers. However, I concentrate most of my work on street and travel photography.
If you will do landscape or wildlife work, be prepared to camp out in the woods. Embrace a specific form of discomfort. I will elaborate on this point later. While I never shied from discomfort, I confess the thought of lugging tents and camping gear in trains and buses to reach my destination never appealed to me. I was also corpulent, and my weight did not help. However, cars were beyond my reach for many years. Even now, cars are exorbitant in India. The situation has improved, and many off-roading vehicles are available these days. We may yet see a new generation of landscape photographers emerging in India.
I didn’t have time, nor did I have the money for extensive travel. My meager salary only ensured I remained stingy with my photography. I shot with black and white film invested in one lens and filters. I was overjoyed when I could afford my first Hoya filters!
One of my colleagues spotted me returning from a day in the bushes, wearing my factory trousers, and certified me as insane.
After experimenting and bumming around for several months, I found the streets and nearby destinations kept drawing me to them. Did I find street and travel photography, or did street and travel photography find me? Who knows? Maybe we saw each other.
The point is simplicity itself: find the genre of photography that speaks to you. If you don’t, you will always try to put yourself in shoes that do not fit. No matter how stylish the shoes are, if they don’t fit, they will bite and deform your feet. Deformed feet hurt impair your balance and a person’s ability to walk; I’ve seen too many people who waddle and cannot climb steps because of their feet.
Find the genre of photography that works for you. Only then will you excel, and only then will you have any chance of finding success?
Discomfort. I mentioned discomfort. Don’t assume street photography is easy or resembles a walk in the park. In South Asia, at least, it is uncomfortable, which differs from pitching a tent in the wilderness. In the wilderness, you may worry about becoming a predator’s meal, but you will enjoy the sounds of nature.
On the streets in South Asia, a photographer must contend with dust, noise, heat, vehicular pollution, crowds, insane traffic, as well as cattle and other stray animals. You need to protect your belongings and your sanity and focus on photography. A street photographer’s gear is lighter than that of a landscape or wildlife photographer, but the challenges are different. Never compare the different genres and assign points to either.
So, I found street and travel photography. Street and travel photography found me. We followed a meandering path towards each other until we collided and walked together.
Finding the Streers