Studios and more studios of photography.
January 16, 2022
Building up a studio.
What seemed like a dream many years ago has become a reality for the third time in a row. I guess most achievements always seem this way when it comes to reaching trying to achieve them for the first time. And once the first time is over, it no more seems as challenging as reaching it for the first time.
Over the years I’ve been practicing different forms of photography which I would like to state in chronological order because it will make sense once you understand the different genres of photography. I started my Mac with automobile Photography which was my first project followed by a one-year-long internship in Fashion photography with photographer Vikram Bawa. Followed by that I started shooting look books and catalogs for different clothing brands in Mumbai. I decided to set up my first studio in Pune at the age of 23 which could manage to undertake fashion as well as product photography projects. Followed by the urge to grow after a period of three years I decided to move back to Bombay from Pune where I started specializing in jewelry photography during my time in Pune that let me to set up a smaller space of about 300 ft.² in Mumbai. After a period of one year, I decided to educate myself further at the New York Film Academy in a course that entails advanced fashion photography. This is where I discovered Photo lapses which are a black and white monochromatic photo series following the trails of motion photo lapses was a name that I came up with. After finishing up with New York I came back to Mumbai and figured that I might not need a Studio anymore because I was doing bigger advertising campaign projects that required massive Studios which are easily available on rent for a cheap price in Mumbai. I started working out of Soho House Mumbai which was a newly established co-working space for creatives from the space of advertising, marketing, and branding as well as the film industry.
It was the festival of Holi in India when I decided to return back home for a four-day break in Pune when the coronavirus outbreak occurred in India. This was the time that had a lot of people in a lot of confusion and distress and I was amongst one of those. It let me to being trapped in Pune and I waited along for the first wave to end before I could decide what my next step would be. Soho House Mumbai always filled up that cap where I needed to leave my house and work as well as it was not a studio. Once back in Pune I was now living in my own house and there was no club similar to Soho house or any other co-working space dedicated to artists such as myself. This led me to open my next studio which happened to be Studio number three. As seen in the pictures above it was a massive space of nearly 2000 ft.² that could enable me to make advertising campaigns, product photography projects, luxury jewelry products to be shot in a very systematic and luxurious manner.
Along came the second wave of COVID-19 which led all malls and office spaces to shut down and again I had to vacate this rental space which nearly fulfils my idea of an ideal photography studio. I took a break during the second wave and set up a home studio where I shot multiple product brands which include cosmetics, bottles, and other luxury product campaigns. After the finish of the second wave, I decided that I need to definitely set up a new studio dedicated to product photography because it made me realize that it’s about time I focus on one genre of photography that has proven itself to sustain even the deadly Coronavirus.
I am now set up in my fourth studio as you can see in the pictures above which enables me to shoot amazing portrait photography as well as undertake any kind of product photography campaigns for branding, Advertising, and e-commerce purposes.
Today sitting in studio number four and writing down this blog after such a long time makes me feel like this journey has been a long one while the wait to open my first ever studio felt like a longer one. To conclude this blog post I would like to say that I hope I can encourage the emerging photographers of today to not see a Studio as a challenge but to see H as a means to get further in your career. A means that is easily achievable if you believe and have faith in your work.