The Questions I wanted to Answer as an Amateur Photographer.

I am taking photographs completely out of my passion and always for myself to enjoy and to live with nature. Over few years now, I have always been to tell some photo-story to my viewers. The magic of nature through different genre of photography. 

As an amateur photographer, I had always the privilege of interacting with many talented photographers around, discussing about their photography work.

 Can you tell us something about the 'world of photography'?

Photography to me is something that appeals me so much. I see everything so very much astounding and appealing. I see everything has their own story to express through photographs or images, which I feel speaks much more than expressing through writings of poem, essay, etc. Photography is all about being creative. The two most important aspects to keep in mind during photography is light and imaginative mind. Photography to me is perhaps everything that connects me so well with nature.  

Which photographers influenced you and how did they influence your thinking and photographing skills?

Well, to tell about the photographers; I have a long list of great photographers around the world to whom I always trust and follow their work constantly. Amongst all their work, I usually follow them for the technical aspects and the clarity of thoughts in their images. To tell closely about the photographers who has influenced me the most is, Mr. Yeshey Dorji, a bird photographer and a great blogger - only professional photographer in Bhutan. I liked his both bird and landscape images. To me he is exceptionally a good photographer. I also follow many foreign wild life photographers, landscape photographers, street photographers and portrait photographers to keep up my work alive and progressive. I liked; kiran Poonacha, Praveen Mohandas, AK Sahay, Sudhir Shivaram for birds and animals photography.

As an amateur photographer, among your works, which one is your favorite? Why?

I guess, this is absolutely a tough question to answer. Well, as an amateur photographer I have many in my list which I always like to remember and that is unquestionably my favorite one amongst all. I have some remarkably good photographs of birds, butterflies, landscape and portraits. I liked all of these because I have taken lots of hardship to shoot them. Sometimes I have even taken some hours to get them focus well. Especially, I have made tons of sacrifices and hardship while shooting high flying birds and butterfly being too shy creature to shoot. I have most of the time sacrificed my holidays, Sundays and most importantly my family times in going out and meeting my self-demand.

Can you tell us something on 'natural settings' and the type of gears you use to shoot outdoor objects?

Like I said, before someone can lend you a hand, you must touch their heart. And touching someone's heart ultimately comes through spawning good images. While taking pictures/images if you cannot touch someone's heart and the eye, it's useless even if you enjoy the most. Because ultimately viewers that matters the most for any kinds of work; be it writings, fine art and photography. First, it should always touch the heart of the readers/viewers. However, coming to natural settings, it's so simple to define or say it here. While doing birds or animals or butterflies shooting it's important to shoot where it naturally feeds or lives in; birds usually appears best on the tree branches, dead log, piles of stone, river water and so on. Butterflies on the leaves, sand, small twigs and flowering plants are some of the natural habitats, which they appears natural. As a photographer, it is always good to shoot in their natural habitats. While I use Canon DSLR; kit lens and zoom lens (55-250mm) as of now. But, I have a plan to get better one in future. 

      

How do you get the person, place or thing that is in front of the camera onto the film in just the way you wanted?

Every photographer develops their own shooting strategy in their own unique way be that high flying objects, animals, landscape or portraits. Understanding how each photographer develops their particular style is important in figuring out your own approach to photographing. For me, taking a shot is no different for any objects be it person, place, things or high-flying-objects. I always take every new approaches to shoot by keeping all the technical aspects like ISO, F-stop, shutter speed, metering, angle, etc. at the back of my mind. Compare to the past, I have geared my camera skills far off that what I was before. While I usually and always try and attempt to photograph only those things I know I can photograph well.

As a beginner into photography world, what exactly you want to say with your photographs and how do you get your photographs to do that?

For a beginner like me, what I usually think is different photographers have different likes and the end goals. The most successful ones are those who can consistently get their work done the way they wanted it. For me most of my work is for self. But in the best of all, I wanted to tell my audience that nature has the greatest stuffs to cherish. In all I always wanted to tell a story and the specialty of nature.

What was your career path? How did you get yourself in being an aspiring photographer and a school teacher?

What I know is, any photographers are not born as a skilled one. They start out as unskilled and they reach to their goals through constant feedback, education, motivation, luck, networking and determination. In my case, I have started as a simple landscape and a portrait photographer. After gaining some confidence in managing camera focus and some technical aspects. Of late, I started to like for birds and butterflies photography. Now coming to my photography and a school teacher; I manage both equally. I make it sure that my photography world do not hamper my professional life. Honestly, as a school teacher having some good ideas/skills about photography has been always better. Often, times it had helped me go beyond mundane teaching by sharing my feelings and some skills about my photography. I usually share some good aspects of nature around, my passion for photography, importance and scope of photography which had at times helped me so well to bind my lessons. Indirectly, I am trying to tell my students that life is not only about running after degree qualification and then making a final job career. As of now I have not decided what next phase of my life would look like. But, I have a better plan.

How can you manage family life and photography? Is there any family restriction over your passion?

What I usually think is, most important part in life is not what you get from it, but what you give to it. Life is all about helping each other and understanding someone's deep committed hearts and most importantly the feelings. I always keep in mind that I have a helping and lovable family to whom I shouldn't be neglecting with my passion. When I am alone and have a mood to venture into nature outside, I ask a special permission for an hour or so. When I am at home, I talk to my family. Sometime I tell them my interest and let them understand on my passion. Sometime when my wife is free I ask her to go with me for photography for an hour and that is how I balance my family life and giving my passion. While, to tell about the restriction; there are many but not so prominent, initially I have faced fairly tough time making my wife understand that I am so crazy about photography.

What motivates you to continue taking pictures of different genres of your choice?

This is an important question for any photographer to consider. Even if you do not take photographs for money; clarifying why you do it and what you get out of it and what bothers you is extremely important. For me, I do photography out of my passion and likes. I finds this activities the most appealing. Because I can relate life one year, ten years, twenty years and so on from now. I always keep in mind that things get change and this kinds of documentation records will help me keep all things alive throughout. I can say how the things has changed in front of me through some collection of images. I produce my light studies well because my favorite thing to do as a photographer is to get up early, go somewhere to new location, experience fresh air, watch the early light unfold. Obviously, I think one best way to get close with nature is only by walking into the wild, experiencing peaceful wildlife, bird watching in their habitats. The beautiful nature around has always motivates me to take images and explore wild even more every time I venture into the wild. 

My few advice would be give your passion, when you have energy and ability. Never stop at one point, if you have any kind of passion within you. Simply giving your passion doesn't make you down nor will it waste your time.