Photo by Col Chugh

Hi folks,

As the monthly photography get-together of Indore Photographers, yesterday, we had the renowned and very experienced photographer Col Kamaljeet Chugh as our guest speaker.

In the presentation he talked about his journey with camera and how he evolved from an army officer into a professional photographer.

The main points he talked about (with examples of his photos) were

• Always carry your camera with you
• Always take lots of photos
• Don’t wait for the perfect time, perfect location etc, try to see, what is the best photo that you can take right now.
• Your photos must tell a story to be sellable
• Your photo must be composed in such a way that every corner has something interesting or something that adds to the importance of the main subject
• Pay attention to the entire frame of the photo, not only the subject.
• You photo must stand-out whether it is hanging as the only photo on the wall or whether it is kept with hundreds of other photos.
• Learn to delete your photos mercilessly. If you are not satisfied with a photo, delete it. Take better photos.  Do not share the bad photos with the world.
• Your photos must follow the rules of composition and once you are comfortable with it, break it once in a while to capture some creative shots
• When you are traveling with the purpose of taking photos, always have your camera ready…. ready means a shutter speed of 125 to 250, an aperture of F/16 and ISO of 200 etc
• Do not hesitate to talk to people from ad agencies, news papers, web sites etc
• Always keep a collection of some of your best photos ready that you can show to other people. This will help you get work.
• Participate in competitions, specially the ones that pay cash or gift rewards. This will help you earn a reputation.
• There is always an opportunity to take good photos, where ever you are. Learn to look at the world that way.
• Practice to shoot hand-held at the slow shutter speeds of 1/15 sec or less. This will help you take beautiful photos even in difficult light situations.

And there were many such bits and pieces of advice that am not able to recall right now, but granted me the permission to share the slides that he used for the presentation.

This presentation has some beautiful photos taken by him, unfortunately you had to be here to know about the story behind each photo.

All photos in the presentation are copyright of Col Chugh

And this is how it was covered by the Patrika Newspaper

Our next monthly meet is scheduled on the fourth Sunday of Nov i.e. 22 Nov 2009.

If you are at Indore during that time, feel free to join us with another discussion with another senior photographer here.

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Have fun,
Gunjan