How Photography Changed My Life: Amit Kumar, Software Engineer, Pune.
This is a guest post by our photography online course student, Amit Kumar.
An introduction about who you are, what you do for a living and how you got into photography.
“Travelling is all about finding your soul”. This is my belief since childhood. Hello I am Amit Kumar Kundu, working in Pune as a normal Software Engineer which is the most common profession nowadays, but what makes me different is my thinking and my passion.
Basically I am from a small town in Madhya Pradesh known as Shahdol. Since childhood I always enjoyed travelling and exploring new places as it gives me peace and tranquility. And photography has always fascinated me, as I like capturing moments that give me joy.
How was your first experience with your camera?
In 2011 I started working in an IT firm and that’s the time I retained my old passion of travelling, but something was missing in my travels.
I used to capture photos from my cell phone, but was not satisfied. So I started reading many travel blogs and websites and decided to go in for a DSLR.
After some research, I decided to buy the Nikon D5100, which was quite famous that time. Initially I used to capture pics in the auto mode and even though something was missing from those photos, I continued doing that as I was OK with it since it had added new life to my travels.
What were the things you did to get better at photography?
In 2013, I decided to go deep and tried to learn on my own from YouTube videos but it wasn’t satisfactory.
So then I enrolled under the Nikon basic photography class and came to know about shooting in the manual mode of the camera, so i tried to implement the learnings but was not too successful.
Then I got transferred to Pune and that was the time I came across the Creative Pad Photography organisation. Under the mentoring of Kush Sharma, the founder of Creative Pad Photography, I started learning different techniques and principles in their weekend photography workshop. Some of these learnings were related to:
1) Rule of thirds
2) Depth of field
3) Composition
4) Exposure Triangle
After that I never looked back and tried my hands across all types of photography, from Landscape to Wildlife to Candid to Street photography, Landscape and street photography were the genres that excited me the most.
So in the meantime I started doing pre-wedding photography and
marriage photography for my friends but Landscape photography was the thing
that kept me going. It was like oxygen for me.
I traveled across all horizons from deserts to forests to beaches to snowy peak
mountains in India. I utilized almost all long weekends holidays in the year
2018 and traveled across various parts of India with a limited budget and
proper planning in advance to achieve that.
Here is a summary of my travels:
December 2017 — Bhuj and Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, it is famous for white desert.
January 2018 — Udaipur and Chittorgarh , Udaipur is white city of Rajasthan and Chittorgarh is land of Rani Padmavati .
March 2018 — Goa , no words for Goa as everyone knows it’s a place of beauty and beers.
May 2018 — Uttan beach Mumbai, the one I will describe later on this article.
June 2018 — Alibag and Kashid beach, it’s a place in Maharashtra famous for beautiful beaches.
July 2018 — Dapoli Konkan, it’s a beautiful place in Konkan region of Maharashtra, famous for pristine beaches and beautiful valleys.
August 2018 — Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra. It’s a beautiful small hill station in Maharashtra famous for strawberry farming and beautiful waterfalls.
September 2018 — Pawna lake inLonavala. It’s a beautiful lake situated in the hill station of Lonavala, famous for night camping under glittering stars.
October 2018 — Kasol and Manali in Himachal Pradesh. Kasol is a place where you can find Nirvana and inner peace and seek the beauty of nature here. Manali is a famous hill station for watching snow peaked mountains.
November 2018 — Bandhavgarh national reserve in Madhya Pradesh, It’s a famous wild life sanctuary where you can see roaring tigers and other majestic animals via a jungle safari.
Your favorite shot of yours up till now and its details
As a lover of nature, I traveled across all places near Maharashtra. One day I came across a beautiful place near Uttan beach in Mumbai. It’s a small village of fisherman, where you can see
variety of fish, and their small boats.
I had learnt fast shutter speed techniques under Kush, so I tried to capture the sea with a boat floating in it, and trust me that was the time I clicked the best picture of my life.
The sunset and the magnificent view of sea with the boat floating made me realize that life is all about capturing that perfect moment that we crave about. This shot also got me the 1st prize in Creative Pad
Photography’s long exposure photography contest so it will always stay in my heart.
What is the equipment that you use?
As a beginner, I possessed a basic DSLR with a 18-55 mm kit lens , but as time passed, I gained knowledge of various equipment which can make your photos breath taking.
I eventually bought a 50 mm f1.8 primes lens and one zoom lens (70-300 mm f5.6) with a basic 4-stop ND filter and one Tripod which is quite essential in landscape photography,
For shots that required expensive lenses like the 70-200 mm f2.8, I rented them.
How has photography changed your life?
Photography is all about meeting your soul. As a person, photography helped me a lot to find my inner self and it has broadened my horizons. Now I am able to see a story in everything.
After a hectic schedule at work, it’s photography that keeps me going in life. We play a different role in life as a son, a lover, a husband or any other, but it’s some passion or hobby that really defines us.
As a Bullet rider and a traveler I always like to praise beauty of nature and photography helps me in that.
What are your future aspirations in terms of photography?
As an amateur photographer I would someday like to become like the famous Sudhir Sivaraman, who quit his IT job and followed his passion and emerged as a successful wildlife photographer. Through photography, I want to put happiness in everyone’s life .
After all, photography is all about finding your soul.
