Photography is a creative Visual storytelling that can evoke emotions by sight. Creating your own unique visual voice and letting it heard by the masses through their eyes not ears is an art. Pankaj Prajapati is a firm believer of this. He believes that photography is not only about aperture, sharpness, tone, lens but beyond that. If we say in his words, “Photography is an art of representing common things around, in uncommon way!” Rooted deeply in the Northern Plains of the River Ganges, Bihar, and brought up in DilWalonkiDilli, Pankaj is a Civil Engineer working as Estimating officer with Government of Bihar and a passionate self-taught astounding photographer.
It was obvious from the beginning
As it is said, if you have got that knack for something, you must work hard for keeping it alive within you and this is what Pankaj did. Let us look into his story – It was that time when a little boy was entranced by the Kodak KB-10 point and shoot film camera of his Father and started his hands-on initial stages of photography by shooting Family gatherings. Little that young heart knows that shooting for family functions and trips with KB-10 would take him on this exceptional journey of capturing stories shortly. This kick-start made him join the photography club in his college days. As time passed on, his skills got enhanced and the gears got upgraded, from KB- 10 to GoPro Hero 7 & Max his photography journey is not done yet!
A turning point
Pankaj was enjoying the way he was being directed into his photography journey. Then one day he got his first assignment and got a chance to work as a professional one! Oh! how it is rightly said that few things are destined to happen!! It was an engagement ceremony of one of his friends, due to some uncertain reasons the photographer who was hired for the day could not turn up. Then his friend requested him to shoot for the ceremony. Pankaj accepted and went ahead with the shoot, after all a friend in need is a friend indeed! And a sweet favor for his friend made him realize that he can be a professional photographer. But to reach where he is today took him through thick and thin. The initial two years of being a professional photographer went by just like that doing unpaid assignments. Patience and hard work always pay off. Soon after that, a turning point came. The brands like Lensball, Daniel Wellington, Johnnie Walker, Mivi Electronics to name a few approached him and that was then his passion turned into his side profession. Yes! A side profession.
“the fact that I had the choice to pursue photography as my main career made me very satisfied for pursuing photography as my passion.”
Everything may seem very smooth in Pankaj’s story but being a professional photographer has its own share of struggle, that too with a full-time job. But balancing his two jobs really never bothered him or became a bottleneck as his love and dedication towards his both works drive him every day.
“It takes almost a day to shoot and make the picture ready to post with a full-time job and it’s a daily struggle but a good one!”
He manages his time well in a strategic way. Most of the shoot he tries to finish them off before going to his office and the transferring, editing, formatting, and posting is done in the evening after coming from the office. The editing tool which he uses is Adobe Lightroom. What he likes the most about the Adobe Lightroom is its tone curve which leaves a lot of room for experimentation. It helps him in giving his photographs a tone (eg: Cinematic tone, Vintage tone, etc.).
Neither your way nor the highway, it is his way!
When asked about his style, Pankaj answered in a very simple line, “Showcasing commonly perceived views through a creative vision.” Capturing common in a frame is boring for him. Hence, he loves to have a fusion of genres, experiments with angles, and color tones to give his pictures a unique creative touch. His every click narrates a story. Many of his photographs are composed of common everyday things around but creatively.
According to him, a photograph is composed of two parts, how best one can shoot the picture and how best one can edit the picture. A good photograph is the amalgamation of both. Regarding the first part, it should be as per the composition rules. Even if one is breaking the composition rule, it is fine until and unless it is doing justice to the photograph.
In the second part, the post-processing should be aesthetically pleasing and natural. The fun fact is that photography is an art and in the field of art, criticism is bound to come along no matter what. The best way is to take them in a positive way and second never weigh your quality of work by the Instagram Likes as likes are mostly dependent on many factors like the number of people online at that particular time, etc.
He, his photography, and the photo-sharing app – Instagram
He joined Instagram in 2018 and the platform has since then kept inspiring and motivating him. Further, he added, as he had worked as a Social Media manager before, he very clearly understands the algorithm of Instagram. Instagram is always favorable to creative people. It is a platform like no other. It gives you various metrics and provides you with decent growth.
But in the end, Instagram is a business organization and it makes sense to them to monetize it and reap the profit. Some of the take always that he mentioned are, defining the photography niche clearly in the bio. The bio should answer two questions, i.e Who are people going to follow? And Why are people going to follow?
The hashtags should be 24-27 in number. Keep them a mix of location hashtags (eg: #delhi, #india, etc.), generic hashtags (#silhouette #portrait #portraitphotography, etc.) and a healthy mix of low, medium, and high feature pages. Producing consistent and good content.
But as a beginner in any art field, Instagram growth should not be a priority. The priority should be focusing on building the basics and that would happen with the quality content. The growth comes after that. It is a community-building social media platform and through photography, he came across few photographers that have become his inspiration, like, the works of Aditya Venkatesh (@audiphotography), Ganesh Vanare (@haram_khor_), Bobby Joshi (@bobbyjoshi).
He also follows a lot of underrated photographers who share their work with him by using his hashtag #snapwithpankaj, some of them are Ritvik Sharma (@mavgrapher), Zafar Shibli (@zeya_photography), Nitesh Dwivedi (@neat_aish), Mohit Agarwal (@__mohitagarwal)
The Creative ‘Block’
We know that the field of art where one produces content by themselves is challenging. Sometimes it happens that few of us go through a period of “creative block”. So, we asked Pankaj how he deals with this and we got a motivational response from his side. He said, as an artist, it is okay to have occasional creative blocks. Whenever one feels not okay with creating content or not getting ideas or motivation to click pictures, it is okay to take a break. Yes, to this “block” he is no exception.
Traveling helps him to cope up with this. Second, he never puts himself under pressure. He believes in the idea of micro-goals. Setting up micro goals helps him to aim for creating his next better than his previous one.
What a brilliant strategy of managing work passion balance in life – setting up the micro goals!! This was Pankaj, a shutterbug who believes in narrating a story through his photography by presenting common things in the most uncommonly creative way.
You can follow Pankaj at
Instagram for his photography work.
TikTok : Behind the scenes and process of his pictures
Youtube Channel : For sharing knowledge.
This article is written by Alisha Srivastava. You can find her writing on her Instagram. Follow her to read her writings.
This article is Curated by @frameshade. Follow him for his photography work
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