Shooting to fame

According to Gautam, the ’80s saw the dawn of the fashion era. It was at this time that Ashok Salian joined the world of glamour photography. And though he did not have the same obstacles to cross as Gautam, he says that film work was still looked down on. "There was a feeling that if you do film photography you must be really hard up. It was not until I started doing film work that other photographers really took this work seriously," says Ashok. Today, he is so popular that Rekha insists that only he shoots her.

And even the high priestess of society, Parmeshwar Godrej, has had her face immortalised by Ashok. But he too has scaled the social ladder and now, his wild-haired, bushy bearded appearance is as well known as Parmesh’s.

But it’s not all fun and games. Fraternising with celebs, forinstance, does not pay the processing bills. "I do not make my money from taking pictures for Stardust or Cine Blitz. Most of the money I make comes from ad work. But I still do this work because you can be more creative when doing editorial work," says Sumeet Chopra. Sumeet started his career with the Raymond’s campaign and has never looked back. His only complaint: "With ad work, you do not get a credit for the photograph so only people within the industry know about you."

Not that they do not enjoy their work. "Once you have carved your niche, — which is hard work — it can be very glamourous," says Sumeet. Daboo Ratnani, who trained under Sumeet for four years, before setting out on his own says, "I never expected it to be so glamourous. It happened like a shot." After all, photographers can get to go off to distant lands with some of India’s most beautiful women to shot campaigns. "The spin-off of glamour photography is glamour. You meet beautiful women and you get to hang out withthem. But after a while this rubs off," says Ashok.

Revelling in celebrity status also rubs off rather fast. If a photographer is spotted at pub with one of his svelte subjects, who might’ve become a friend they find themselves featured in gossip columns. "People like to write about interesting people and readers seem to want to know about photographers," says Sumeet. Atul Kasbekar (the man behind the Kama Sutra campaign) adds, "Fashion, and anything connected to it, is now in the public eye. People know more about Aishwarya Rai than they did about Anna Bradmeyer. And now a glamour tag is attached to even a mediocre fashion photographer." Whereas the breed of news photographers is left in the cold. "Nobody cares about the person who takes photographs of the fire at Mukesh Mills. But if you shoot a film star, then it’s a different case," says Sumeet.

Gautam is more comfortable with the tag it’s an occupational hazard, just part of the job. And though he chooses not to socialise with the Mumbai’sjetset, he can see its advantages. "By meeting models and celebrities out of the studio you get to see them freely. You can study their angles and observe them," he says.

It may sound like one big party but photographers insist that it is not. "The biggest myth is that work is just a lot of fun. Many assistants join and expect it to be easy, soon they drop out," says Atul. For many photographers the day begins at 6:00 am and they can be be clicking away till late at night. Not that they have reason to complain. As Ashok says, "I do get excited about taking pictures of beautiful women."