âMeet my friend Saurabh, heâs an amazing photographer from India and his work has been published in various reputed newspapers and journals worldwide like NatGeo, The Guardian, Lonely Planet, etc. Astonishingly, heâs a self-taught photographer and very passionate about his workâ
Recently, I was touring Europe to meet some friends and this was a kind of introduction I got in their social circle. Even, in India, this is a common way friends and family introduce me to someone.
Isnât using âself-taughtâ has become a cliche in creative fields? Actually, it has become more like a marketing thing to promote yourself these days, even to an extent that artists with a proper college degree have started calling themselves as âself-taughtâ to look cool on their social media profile/s.
The word âself-taughtâ strikes me to think about some of the great inventors like Wright Brothers. In Dayton Ohio, Wilbur and Orville Wright were working on their own aeroplane. Only they didnât have a lot of money. They didnât have a team of world-class talent â not a single person on the team had a college education let alone an advanced degree. They didnât have the best materials. Heck, they were operating out of a bicycle shop. But they had a passion to experiment and to do everything from scratch and to make their dream into reality. On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers took a man into flight for the first time.
Today, we are living in a very convenient world where learning anything to everything has become very easy and on the go. Thanks to all the wonderful educators out there who spend hours to create DIY blogs and youtube tutorials. Thereâs no more rocket science if youâre willing to learn. Well true itâs kind of self-driven study and one needs to be motivated all the time but isnât that true for all kinds of education? I donât remember learning anything new from attending my MBA lectures then also I learnt a lot researching on YouTube and Google. I donât call myself a self-taught MBA then why should I call myself a self-taught photographer. I think to call yourself a self-taught photographer means that you bought a camera and straight away practised on it without learning from all that content available out there. Also, it shows how dis-grateful youâre to your photography mentors!
So every time, I got introduced as a âself-taughtâ photographer, I intervened and say that I am not a âself-taughtâ photographer and am learning photography every day by watching YouTube tutorials and researching about great photography projects and great photographers and studying from powerful photographs. Thanks to all the brilliant photographers and educators who are not afraid to share their knowledge and spend a huge amount of time to create such easy to understand learning content.
I feel grateful to all the wonderful people who have shared their knowledge with me both in person and in the virtual world. Hereâs a list of people from whom Iâve been learning all about photography.
Ted Forbes: He runs a YouTube channel called âThe Art of Photographyâ through which he shares great insights about photography beyond the golden triangle. I especially love his artist series in which he interviews photographers.
Chase Jarvis: He does a lot of things besides being a great photographer. I learn a lot from various interviews he has done for â30 Days of Geniusâ. Also, he has given me my favourite photography quote ever: âThe best camera is the one thatâs with you.â
Aaron Nace: Heâs my go-to man to learn all about Photoshop and Lightroom via his YouTube channel Phlearn.
Ian Norman: Everything I know about astrophotography is through his blog Lonely Speck.
Babak Tafreshi: His Instagram account is my source of all the latest news about the night sky and about the importance of preserving the dark sky.
Eric Kim: He introduced me to the composition in photography. I love his opinions and find his way of teaching photography very honest via his blog posts.
Steve McCurry: My daily inspiration for some powerful photography.
Martin Schoeller: The idea of my ongoing long-term project #WidowsOfVrindavan came from his portrait project âHomelessâ.
Sanjay Narayan: Heâs a Delhi-based commercial photographer. I assisted him for a couple of times and Iâve never met a photographer as honest as him. He taught me a very important lesson about photography: that it changes with every inch.
Jimmy Nelson: I have learned a lot from his work on tribes and how he connects with people without even knowing their local language.
David Alan Harvey: If you dream of creating your own photo book someday, then just follow his Instagram stories and Iâm sure youâll end up making one soon.
Chris Burkard: Heâs a true storyteller and I learn a lot from his travel and behind-the-scenes stories about making photographs. Plus he shares a lot about his personal life too.
Serge Ramelli: Heâs the master of post processing. I mostly follow his Lightroom workflow.
A big thanks to all the brilliant photographers and educators who are not afraid to share their knowledge and spend huge amounts of time creating such easy-to-understand educational content. I feel grateful to all the wonderful people who have shared their knowledge with me both in person and in the virtual world.