Haute SHOTS

The pack of the Nineties,Rohit Chawla,Denzil Sequeira,Prabuddha Dasgupta,Farrokh Chothia,and Tarun Khiwal,set the ground rules for fashion photography in India. Today’s lensmen like Vishwa and Verma are bringing on the experimental stuff—gritty settings,dramatic lighting or even the innovative use of simplicity.

“One of the toughest things to do as a fashion photographer is to keep things minimal,” says Ram Bherwani,32,another Mumbai-based photographer,whose list of clients includes Pooja Bhatt Productions,Vishesh Films,Lux,D’damas,Vikram Phadnis and Wendell Rodricks. Bherwani’s latest campaign is for Italian watch brand Morellato. It’s a deceptively simple image: actors Neil Nitin Mukesh and Preity Zinta standing together,the stark background a perfect foil to the glint of steel on their wrists.

Most of the high-profile brand campaigns in the country,besides portfolios,are shared between four photographers —Bherwani,Vishwa,Verma and Prasad Naik. They command rates that range between Rs 30,000 and over Rs 1 lakh a day,according to industry estimates.

“I actually decided to quit photography once I finished my four years of apprenticeship with Tarun Khiwal. I almost started looking for a safe job with a regular salary but Tarun convinced me to give it a try,” says Vishwa,33. Born in Udaipur to parents who ran a garage,Vishwa says he grew up among tools and bikes,with no remote connect to photography,till he came to Delhi to complete his graduation. He began working in a photo lab and soon got interested in the profession. Now he jet-sets between exotic locales,shooting close to seven days a week at a stretch.

While the earlier generation worked with a nascent industry at home,these photographers have the advantage of Indian fashion’s growing presence in the international arena. Just as designers like Manish Arora,Rajesh Pratap Singh,Sabyasachi Mukherjee and Anamika Khanna have made inroads into the foreign market,international beauty and luxury brands and magazines have also come to India. The Indian fashionista not only aspires to brands such as Chanel,Valentino,Hermes and DKNY but has the money power to snap them up. Fashion magazines like Vogue,L’Officiel and Elle have set up offices in India,leading to a proliferation of editorial work.

Veteran fashion photographer Rohit Chawla says it’s the exposure which has opened up the world for these youngsters. “When we started out in the early Nineties,there were no stylists,barely any make-up artistes,and only a handful of designers who felt the need for fashion photography,” he says. The change has come in the last two decades. “Internet has opened up the world and so has digital technology. Fashion photography is now more about the concept,a merger between cutting-edge technology and a creative insouciance that,contrary to the transitory nature of fashion,aims to endure,” he says.

Verma,whose client list includes not just most of the big names of Indian fashion,but also hospitality industry giants like Taj and Leela,and advertising biggies like Nokia,Samsung,Smirnoff,De Beers,Reebok and Coke,agrees that he is aiming for a bigger canvas. Born to architect parents,he remembers his apprenticeship with Farrokh Chothia as the time which shaped his ambitions. “In those years,my head and heart understood the connections between the various arts,music,movies,design and photography. The kind of movies and music I liked slowly drove me to imagine worlds and fashion photography seemed like the only way to realise them,” he says.

Each of the four photographers has a distinctive style. If Bherwani keeps props in the background,Vishwa’s photographs have an angular look where the background is often a sharp jamboree of colours,the subject is etched out in sharp silhouettes and the face often a play in light and shade. Naik plays around with the setting and the angles,while Verma uses props to the best possible effect,blending them seamlessly with the mood. It’s no longer just about models,rather fashion photography has come to represent a larger-than-life,often surrealistic representation of fashion. Vishwa puts it differently. “I call what I do,people photography. It’s all about capturing the right moment within the right composition,with the right,or sometimes,inappropriate lights,but with the right mood,” he says.

Apart from Bherwani,the initial years were tough for the photographers. “You need to invest a lot in creating your own style and that takes years,” says Naik,34. Verma started off by shooting animals in a zoo for a national daily and got paid Rs 300 for each picture that was used. “It was followed by an assignment to shoot the portrait of an owner of a successful coffin-making business,a picture of a group of installation artists,” he says. He went on to do many portraits and odd jobs. The little money he made from these was spent on doing personal shoots to build a portfolio that he would send to magazine editors. “All those years I spent shooting whatever people wanted me to— belts,bags,portraits,restaurant interiors,street life. I was mostly broke,but that didn’t matter,” he says.

What mattered though were ideas and super-people skills. “The very nature of fashion is transitory. There’s a lot of pressure,but it’s also very invigorating. You are always looking out there for what’s new,what’s next and what’s fresh,” he says. Verma says he always keeps the commercial aspect of fashion in mind. “You’re always selling something—the dress,the bag,the shoe,the make-up…seeing a fashion shoot should make you want to the buy it. So you are only as good as your last job,” says Verma.

Bherwani and Naik say it’s essential you work with people whom you get along with. “You have to think on the job. Unless your subject has confidence in you,or unless you can communicate your vision to the person,it’s difficult to get the perfect shot,” says Bherwani. He talks of the camaraderie he shares with Neil Nitin Mukesh and Perizaad Zorabian,with whom he has shot extensively. “There needs to be an intuitive understanding in fashion photography. For instance,Neil gets my point in a flash,and often gives it his own spin. We work in tandem,” he says.

Despite their innovations,criticism abound. This is an industry where legends about the erstwhile generation still do the rounds—one such being about how Farrokh Chothia discarded a digital camera after a few shots during the publicity shoot for Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Devdas,because “the camera was doing his job for him”. The digital generation with access to tools like Photoshop are not seen as kosher enough. “When we were shooting there were photographers,now there are button pressers,” says Chawla.

Verma retorts “It’s all high-brow pseudo-intellectual hyperbabble. What is ‘easy’ anyway? The one thing it has done is that you don’t have to wait for the film to come back from the lab to realise you have messed up. So it saves the client’s money and everyone’s time. In fact,digital photography has opened up visual language,colour treatments that were previously unknown and untried. It’s a whole new tool in a whole new world,” he says.
Having entrenched themselves in the Indian market,they are now gearing up for the next phase of their career. “The whole world is looking at India with great interest. The market is bound to go international and photo representatives are going to change the way this business is done,” says Verma.