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Transcript
Vineet
Hi everyone and welcome to photosynthesis the podcast where we hang out with incredible Indian photographers, content creators, film makers hear their stories and justice learn a lot of cool stuff along the way. We have with us today Manoj Kulkarni, who is a photographer. I don’t even know how to describe him in one kind of photography. He’s been doing photography of all kinds. Little bit of portraits, little bit of triangle, little bit of macro, a little bit of everything. So this is going to be a very, very interesting discussion. I in fact I’m really looking forward to it because I’ve been a bit of a hobbyist photographer for many years, but I have a lot to learn. So hi, Manoj.
Manoj
Hi vineet. How are you?
Vineet
I’m doing well. I’m doing well. How are you doing today?
Manoj
I’m also doing great. Thank you very much for asking.
Vineet
Perfect. Perfect. So I’m just going to start off with asking, what’s your latest trip been the last set of photographs that you took that you were really happy with?
Manoj
Yeah, definitely. The last time I had been to a nice trip was in January and I went to Belora and Halebidu in Karnataka with my family. Below is an age-old temple dates back to 14th century. I think. I’m not sure what what the dates but yeah, it’s. Very old, I went. I went there with my family and for me my wife was a great model and so I took great portraits of her in the temple in and around the. Temple. I really liked the photo photo shoot. And the outcome of it?
Vineet
That’s very. So I am not very very portrait photography. What part of the portrait was actually the the the environment? How important since you did this in an architectural like you know in ancient site how important was the the environment to your composition?
Manoj
Yeah, composition first of all, portrait while clicking the portrait pictures. It’s very important to focus on the emotions, the emotions of the. Project, so there should be something in the. Photo like the. Ice should be intense, or the if you’re capturing. What people the? The wrinkles should be visible that shows their experience there. In the past. Something like that. There should be something special about the subject and while I click order pictures I normally take into consideration the. Rule of thirds I always try to place the focused area of the subject at the at one of the intersection points of rule. Of thirds composition. And also.
Vineet
And what kind of lenses do you end up using? If you want to catch it. Sorry, please continue.
Manoj
Uh, I’m not able to.
Vineet
Hear you properly now. I was asking what kind of lenses do you you want to capture the portrait as well as the the environment do you use like a like a wider angle lens like a 35A50 or?
Manoj
Yeah, right now I’m carrying three lenses. The first one is 18 to 55 MM and the other one is 55 to 250 MM and the other one is 50 M 1.8, which is a prime lens. Normally I I shoot quarters with the prime lens that is 50 M 1.8, which gives me greater depth of. And the great bouquet effect. So if I’m considering the portraits, then I definitely go with the 50 M 1.8. Also, if there’s a lack of. Light then also I go with 50 M 1.8 since it’s 1.8 I can open the light widely and let the light in properly. So and if there is if I have to capture any environmental portraits. I go with the 18 to 55 because it gets everything in focus, not just the subject. So environmental portrait as. And not just the subject, but also the environment is important. We need to show the environment as well in which the subject is residing. So that time I go with the 1818. To 55 M which gives. Me like, which focuses the foreground, the midground as well as the background.
Vineet
One issue I run into because you mentioned that you carried 3 lenses. For the script. One issue I run into is. That sometimes there’s an 85 on my camera and I’m like, Oh no, I want to. I want a 35 for. This and what they might be at 35 and like no, I want, you know, I want my zoom for this and eventually I just get so confused and walk down. I’m like, I will just carry a super zoom or something even though it obviously degrades the image quality and I don’t have the apertures. Want how do you how do you deal with this? Like just switching out lenses?
Manoj
Yeah. You know, before going to any location for any shoot, I plan ahead and I try to anticipate like what I’ll be. Getting over there. I normally try to avoid changing lenses at the runtime in order to in order not to miss the shot that I want. So as I told, I went to Belur. Temple. I knew what? What I would. I would get all there. I thought like, there’s no point in carrying the 55 to 250 because it’s a temple and I don’t. I’m not. Going far away from. The subject I’m staying near to the model. So I’m fine with the 50 M as well as 18 to 55. So whenever I wanted this. Shallow depth of field or whenever I wanted to focus only on the subject. I switched on the 50 M otherwise it’s 18 to 55. I just had to interchange 2 lenses, so 18 to 55 and then gave me great pictures which involves focusing the subject as well as the temple the whole environment. But I switched on TO50MM. And then I was able to get great portraits of the subject myself by blurring out the tempo.
Speaker
OK.
Vineet
So and and what what other gear do you end up carrying? So you have three lenses, you have the cameras. So you obviously have a good a nice camera backpack. I’m guessing if you’re carrying three lenses, what other gear do you end? Up carrying when you’re travelling.
Manoj
You know, I’m not really interested in landscape photography, so that that gives us also the problem of carrying a tripod. I don’t have to catch the tripod with me. And I also normally try to shoot with sunlight or natural light. I don’t shoot indoors much. So that gets rid of the flash and the diffuser. So if I’m shooting macro then only I carry the the flash and the diffuser, otherwise it’s just my camera and my three lenses.
Vineet
Which actually brings me to my next question about macro, because macro is 1 area. I’ve I’ve definitely been struggling with. I don’t know if it’s just the noble learning curve or maybe I have a lack of patience. There was macro. Whenever I tried, I tried shooting a dead wasp once and it took me like some. 18 attempts. To do it, and I just kept feeling OK. This is not in focus. The wing is not in focus. Let me go down to an F8F11. Then I’m suddenly worried about the lighting. What all goes into what all goes through your head and what all goes into your photography when you’re. Doing when you’re doing macro.
Manoj
Yeah, right. In my opinion, Mac was the hardest sort of photography that I experienced till date. You know, it’s very hard to focus on the subjects eyes. First of all, the insects are very small and when you try to focus on their eyes, they move around and they fly. So it’s very hard to get a proper perfect picture. In the macro mode, yeah. When I started with macro initially I was feeling a lot of pain in my shoulder. I was sweating continuously in order to get the focus. Right. Also, we are shooting at F25F22 and I need to mount the huge flash on my camera as well as the diffuser on top of the flash. So it was heavy. Yeah it is hard but eventually you’ll get used to it. You keep shooting initially. For the first 100 pictures will get out of focus. And after that you might be able to get the proper focus picture pictures. That’s what I. Great. Yeah, that’s difficult. You know, you need to be patient and you need to at least keep trying. Keep trying and. Won’t find out. You’ll get it.
Vineet
Hopefully I’ve take already taken 98 out of those 100, so the third in which I take now will. Actually be in. Focus. So let’s actually talk about now, what do you do with these. So like a lot of this creative pursuit is about taking photos for ourselves, but. You have also done a lot of stock photography, so when you do stock photography, how does the process work in your head? Do you think I will go out and shoot stock on this particular trip and then plan accordingly? Or is it the other way round that you just take whatever you want to come back and think that oh, this will make for a good stock photo?
Manoj
There are so many aspects like if I go out for a photo shoot, I do it for. My happiness. And also I do it for stocks and I also upload photos on Instagram and I also. Participate in so many competitions, photography competitions. OK, when it comes to stock photography, I’ve been doing it since 2019. I initially started with stock Shutterstock. You know, there are so many advantages to stock photography. You can make a good passive income out of stock photography. Actually my stock photography. Things take care of my flight tickets or hotel rooms or puts petrol in my car, so that’s not bad. And sometimes I even get to buy small camera equipments with the stock photography earnings. See you click a lot of pictures and you keep them on your hard drive. They’ll just catch dust. Nothing else. Why would you keep them there instead? You just get them. Get them out and upload them on your portfolio and let them work for you and also not, apart from the financial side, there are other aspects as well to this stock photography, you know, you upload photos. Stock websites there expert reviewers will be there. They’ll review your photos and they’ll accept or reject based on the content. So if they reject, they’ll give the reason proper reason as to why they have rejected the. Well, so with this process you get to learn as well like. So if your photo is rejected, you need to take a look at the reason why it’s rejected and you make changes to your style or your technique. Or you’re gay. In order to get the proper pictures in the future and improve yourself, that’s a motivator, definitely.
Vineet
Yeah, that’s very good. And it’s actually very encouraging to hear that. Like the stock would already paying for your some of your gear also. And like it’s become a nice fashion constraint. So can you tell a bit more so like so we are setting up a platform where people can actually do this. Now we are not saying that people will earn 10,00,000 a month 5,00,000 a month from just Indian stock photography but we actually want to can you tell a bit more about how much you end up burning on other platforms.
Manoj
And then in early 2000s, people used to make a comfortable living or luxurious living out of stock photography earnings. So nowadays it’s very competitive. Everybody has got a camera. Everybody’s clicking pictures with the raisins. You know, social media and the social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, everybody is becoming a photographer nowadays. So it’s competitive, it is competitive. But as I told you can make a good passive income. And I’ve been doing it since four years. And as I told it, I’ve made some. With which I could buy a lens. The 50 M 1.8 lens I bought out of my stock photography earnings. So I’m I’m happy with that. OK, as I told you, it’s not only about earnings, it’s also about, you know, I forgot to tell you one more thing. So many photos of mine got downloaded and they got published in so many. Reputed prestigious online articles like Outlook Traveler News setting and also Karnataka Tourism Board took made use of my pictures to create their banners. Looking at them, I really felt motivated and very happy and proud about myself. So what I mean to say it’s not only about money, it’s also about other things like. You know, you feel good about your own work.
Vineet
So that that’s actually so. How how did the Karnataka Tourism Board find your photos? Did you have to reach out to them or did they find like organically through your website or something?
Manoj
It was organic. I I used to upload everything on Shutterstock only till date but now with the with your with your initiative I feel really good like just to focus on the India based content and also service stock pays very less amount. We put a lot of efforts, money and time into capturing pictures and we end up getting only $0.10 for a picture. That’s very. Hey Brandon, I know. But from now onwards anyway, we got individual things will get better for me and short photographers like me answering to your question, it was all organic. The Karnataka Tourism Board got to my photos through Shutterstock only. So your content should be discoverable, right? My content was discoverable by the Karnataka Tourism Board because of the keywords and the description I put in with the stock photos. So it’s very important to put the relevant keywords and description in the photos and also you need to be consistent with uploading to stock photography websites because there will be an algorithm. If you’re consistent then that algorithm it will, it will push your photos on top OK for example if you. Karnataka Farmer, you will get around 1,00,000 photos. That means there will be at least 10,000 pages in the status stock website. So your goal is to get your photo in the first page itself so that the the buyer of the customer he doesn’t want to scroll through all the 10,000 pages. He just wants to get. Yeah. So your goal is to get. Your photos on top. In order to do that, you need to be consistent. You need to put the relevant description tags or keywords. Yeah, that that’s the that’s the thing behind getting your photo discovered.
Vineet
So that’s interesting there. There’s a few things happening in the industry that actually we were also keenly observing. One is yes, everyone’s going into subscription model mode. So which is why the average earnings for photographers have drastically gone down. They’ve actually gotten this back from a lot. Of people, the 2nd is like. For us, like the competition is a lot like the. The number of photos everywhere is a lot, but. Simultaneously, Indian footage is still very hard to find. It’s still very. Tricky tool, just even on these big international platforms, it’s very tricky to just. Sort for India specific footage, which is why we’re keeping the payouts to photographers as high as we possibly can. Right now it’s 50% because a when it’s the photographers output that they’re selling, right. So it’s their work. So absolutely they should not be getting $0.10. They should be getting as much. As possible but. Secondly, we also have to run the platform and you know the platform has to. So it’s we’re trying to strike that balance. What do you think it will like? You’ve now been observing the stock photography industry for the last 4-5 years. What do you think is going to happen with especially? With AI coming in and with a lot of creators complaining about earnings, now what, what do we what is your sense of where things will go?
Manoj
In my opinion, AI will not take over because I feel like I’ve seen so many AI photos. AI generated photos, they look more of illustrations. Not photocopy precise. I feel like stock photo photography will still survive. For the upcoming years, I don’t see any issue with that because the AI is around since maybe some a few months but I am not seeing any decline in my sales in shadow stock. So I think that stock photography will be there will be around for the upcoming years. There should not be any issue.
Vineet
Yeah. We’re also actually keenly observing what’s happening now. It’s actually in the last couple of months itself, there’s been a lot of improvement in what we’re seeing there. But yeah, it still feels too generic, too fake plus. We’re looking at India specific content India specific. We need monuments, we need landmarks. It’s an industry we’re also keenly observing and said, yeah, we are going to observe it. Obviously figure out how to stay. On top of it, see how the industry changes. It’s just. In our view, this is very hard to predict right now. Let’s see where it goes. Yeah, well, but we are confident that the demand for India in their specific photos and videos is not. Dying anytime soon.
Manoj
Yeah, it’s not going to die because since so many years, scientists have been talking about robots, self driving cars, and robots will participate in wars and all that. But we are not seeing it right. So air will also fade or it will stay there only it will not come up.
Vineet
Let’s see. Let’s see. Yes, you can tell us about how to how someone who wants to get into stock photography. From the photography perspective, so I’ll in fact I’ll ask you two questions first, from this photography perspective. Second, from the business perspective. How should someone tweak their photography? Let’s say someone’s hobbyist, what should they do to tweak their photography to get into?
Manoj
I need to think about Amir Khan from three years now because excellent success. So focus on getting your photography right. Focus on learning things and focus on composition techniques and learn the trends. And also anticipate the future. For example you now is it’s April, right? So we’ll be hitting the rainy season soon and you’ll try to get the rainy season related photos. Anticipate right on top of the game. There’s so much to learn, so first we need to excel at our skills and then later on we can think about our earnings or our business. That’s what I feel because initially when I started out in the year 2019, so many photos of mine got rejected. That was kind of a motivation for me because I went into YouTube. And they search for so many tips and tricks for stock photography. I learned so many things I nowadays it’s like my approval rate is 90%. Like if I upload 100 photos, 90 of them get approved. So that’s the first and foremost you need to improve on your skills and then later you can think about the earnings. That’s what I think.
Vineet
That’s quite amazing. 90% funded charter stock. Is actually very impressive. Right, right. I wanna ask you, what makes you proud of a photo? What photos do you look back and think you know? OK, this is one of my favorite ones. And why? In fact, we actually share them in the video. But what makes you proud of a photo? Yeah, actually. What makes you look back and think this is a fantastic one? And is it the memories associated with the photo? How tricky it was to take or. What goes into it?
Manoj
So before capturing a picture, you need to paint it in your mind. It should be. In your thought process. Like like the composition of the lighting, everything should be on point. So in order to get one perfect shot I normally click on 3030. Five photos. So yeah, here and there, I get to. See perfect photos. Yeah, and I’ll send to you a question. When I look at a photo, if I feel like it’s perfect, I go. Wow, like you know, I. I start thinking about a story. Looking at the photo, there should be some storytelling in the photo. Everybody can click photos. You can click photos with phone like, but the photo should be perfect. I mean, if you look at the photo, there should be a story inside your mind in no time. And also you should teleport it yourself to that scene and imagine yourself being in that scene. That’s what the perfect photo is for me.
Vineet
And that’s that’s a great point. Actually, it should teleport the viewer of the photo into the scene, which is actually what storytelling is all about. Even even authors. That’s what they aim for to transport the reader into that scene. It’s. And yeah, exactly what photographers. That’s that’s actually a great, great observation. I’m gonna try to keep that in mind that I’m when. I’m going out next, sorry.
Manoj
I got lost. Yeah, sorry, I got to learn about these things from expert photographers in India. We got great photographers. I got to learn so many.
Vineet
Things from there can you can you name some of your inspirations.
Manoj
Yeah, there are so many of them. They are in Instagram. I followed them on Instagram. Maybe we need Wara. Sir, we got Ganesh Vandre, who calls himself haramkhor. He’s from Mumbai and we have Ganesh Bagal and so many of them. The list is huge. I learned from them on daily basis. I keep following their work and I learned these things from them.
Vineet
And what platforms do you use to promote your work? Is it like outside of stock photography sites? Is it just Instagram? Do you do you maintain a very regularly updated website of your own website portfolio of your own, or is it just Instagram?
Manoj
I’m thinking of creating my own portfolio website, but right now I’m just posting on Instagram.
Vineet
And you end up hashtagging a lot like how does it work? Is how do you actually generate engagement on Instagram?
Manoj
So people say so many things about the tagging of photos in Instagram. Some people say that less is more. You put less keywords, the reach will be more. That’s what they say. So I’m I’m I’m still experimenting on the reach of Instagram and recently we got to we got to know that Instagram is mainly focusing on reels, not. Photos, which is very unfortunate for us. Because I don’t consider reels as a form of art so but but unfortunately Instagram is focusing on reels. They are promoting the reels, which is getting huge for Instagram reels whereas photos are not getting any reach properly. Right now I don’t feel like the tags are making any differences, I feel like. It’s in order to promote your work on Instagram the the pages, the established pages on Instagram should share your work by tagging you. That’s one of the ways to get your work up and running and get it more.
Vineet
That’s so getting established pages to share your work. How do you do that?
Manoj
I tagged them in my photos and I use hashtags of their pages and till date I got a few photos of mine shared in the page pages. So yeah, those photos got reached very well.
Vineet
Is this like the the the? Hashtag see in short of the day, that kind of stuff like where then picks up your work like in that sense or you just tag other photographers and. Then they didn’t share it.
Manoj
Those those aspects that you told just now they are saturated I feel, because there are millions of millions of photos related to those tags. Your photo will not get discovered. It will be buried under those photos, so you need to be very specific about the the photo. Let’s say there’s a page called humanity portraits OK which has got around 1,00,000 followers. Let’s say, OK I tagged them in the photo as well as I use their hashtag. If I’m if my work is good enough. They’ll take a look at it and they’ll share it on that page. And then which will attract so many photographers like me into my page.
Vineet
And then the algorithm sort of. Picks that up and sort of, then shares your photos more.
Manoj
Right.
Vineet
I I actually have a problem with the algorithm we, we we all talk about the algorithm like it’s a religion and no one actually knows what goes on inside. We’re all trying to guess and in fact, as I’ve spoken to people who work at Facebook and they also end up saying no, it’s the algorithm. Like it’s a separate overlord. And you know, nobody knows the algorithm is religion itself.
Speaker
Right.
Manoj
Right.
Vineet
It’s very funny. And they catch up.
Manoj
Very funny as well as unfortunate.
Vineet
Exactly right. And and every few months, months change. Now reals are being posted, you know, promoted more every few months they change the location of the button and everyone’s guessing. OK, now the plus is the center button and not the notifications and not the reals. Button has moved slightly to the right. So does that mean we should be sharing even more what will promote our work? On the algorithm, it has become the religion in my head.
Manoj
Yeah, definitely. And also Instagram is becoming more money oriented. I feel because. In order to promote your photos, you need to pay. You need to. Boost your photo. That’s a bad thing I feel because. It’s not allowing the creators or the the artists to come up front. Yeah, honestly, I myself, I don’t. I don’t want to pay. To boost my photo. I feel like if my photo is good enough it should get promoted itself.
Vineet
This is what Facebook did a few years ago, right? It is very controversial at a time that everyone forgot that I am building so Facebook and widespread to build a page. Right, right. I gain I then, you know, attract followers. I reach out to people, find me on Facebook, find in a way, I’m. Promoting their platform. I’m asking people to find me on Facebook, spend more time on their platform. Let’s say I build like 100,000 followers and then one fine day they start throttling my posts so my posts are now only reaching 5% of my followers organically of my followers who are actually who have told Facebook that we want to see ex person’s content. I obviously don’t have. 9000 followers, but right. And then Facebook says if you want to reach all 100,000 of your followers, you have to pay us. And now it seems like Instagram is doing that now. But of course, but yeah.
Manoj
Yeah, they’re doing. They are doing it. We need to look. For alternatives I feel. But unfortunately, everybody’s on Instagram. People don’t know about other platforms for some time. I consider perhaps. That also did not serve my purpose, so I I came back to Instagram again. Like there’s no there’s no way around.
Vineet
Yeah, unfortunately non photographer like Flickr also seems to have like even photographers aren’t using it. Too much these days.
Manoj
Yeah. No, it’s of no use. Flicker is of no use. I think there there is one app that recently came into picture. I don’t remember the name exactly. It’s it’s kind of Instagram. They tried to compete with Instagram. They told that our platform don’t drop your photos. So your platform doesn’t crop your photos. It will allow you to upload the complete picture. Without any cropping. And also we provide you the full quality as Instagram suppresses the quality of the image. But we don’t do it. We provide the full quality of the image. We don’t pixelate the image. And all. That they were there for a while. And they also vanished.
Vineet
And and I I guess one question every such platform also has to ask, are they targeting photographers or are they targeting negative people because photographers want to target regular? So either I’m joining a community of log, it was like DP review, which unfortunately now DP review has also died. Or I’m trying to share my work with the non photographer community. I think that’s why everyone gets lost and Instagram means because they they are the only ones who with like who have the non photographer community on their platform. Yeah. So that’s. The tricky thing.
Manoj
Yeah, Instagram is not the same old Instagram it’s becoming TikTok unfortunately. But yeah, I think we can still make use of Instagram and promote our work. Not to a larger extent, but yeah, fine. We can reach out to a few people.
Vineet
Yeah, I just see, like I see trends. I I see reels when I’m browsing through it, I see a real saying I I’m. A photographer and I took this photo. Like these guys, poor guys are forced to do this to get engagement. It’s like. I just want to take photos and share them.
Manoj
Right.
Vineet
Don’t make me please.
Manoj
Yeah, I know I’m not doing this. I’m not doing any reals. I don’t want to do it. It’s all about my art. It’s not about reaching out to people. So, yeah, I’m people. As I told people are uploading, creating real sort of photos and promoting them, but I’m not going to do it because photography is everything to me.
Vineet
Exactly like trying to force someone who is interested in photos to get into video just seems so like there are people who are interested in video. Great. We use a great platform for them because there’s so much creativity happening on these, but some people don’t want to take photos. Why force them?
Manoj
Yeah, let them be.
Vineet
Yeah. And I could, I would love a TikTok like platform for browsing photos like quickly browse, browse, browse photos, learn more about the photo logo toolkit. Right. Like a nice intuitive interface where obviously Instagram is not listening to us. But we can hope we can hope.
Manoj
Yeah, hope. Hope is the only thing we. Can rely on right now.
Vineet
But thanks for that. That’s been fascinating. I think that’s a good point to end on. Hope is always a good point to end on.
Manoj
Right, right.
Vineet
It’s been a great discussion. Thanks guys for tuning in. We will be uploading more and we’ll be discussing more with India’s best photographers. Thanks Manoj.
Manoj
Yeah. Thank you very much.
Vineet
Bye. See you all. Bye bye.
Manoj
Take care. Bye bye.
