Its been months since my last post and that's because I was stuck knee deep in work since February. I have worked for a modeling academy for making their students' portfolios and their own promotional calendar. I also took up an product photography assignment for a Jute bag manufacturing and exporting company. The portfolio section went well, lets say the models/passouts need more grooming interms of posing in front of the camera and knowledge about the styles and trends.
The product photography assignment is the best product photo shoot I have ever done. My client is a real gentleman and he liked my work the day he saw it. I was overwhelmed to know the fact that he refused to work with anyone else except me for this assignment. It will end soon as the last phase of shoot is going on.
I also started a new project for my promotion on my own. It all started when I was planning to shoot a conceptual glamour portrait. I was looking for a good MUA for a long time. God must have been very fair with me when he gave me a chance to be acquainted with Mrs. Arpita Ganguly. I explained my situation and my concept to her. Budget was not at all a constraint for her. Addition was a paid shoot for another model I knew from the past. She likes my work and wanted to get some of her jewelry and other glamour photos clicked by me. The entire session was done in a day. My MUA was more than happy with my work. It went well and I was craving for some more. Then it occurred to me that why don't I just go ahead and shoot some more photos and make a calendar for new Bengali year 1417. It would be a wonderful promotion for me at this level. It also work as surprise because no one had seen this kinda work in my vault. Everyone instantly liked the idea and there we are. I got serious and real help from my MUA, who is an experienced industry professional. She brought few models who would be interested in working in my calendar. I also called upon models from my initial team. It went well till now. Shoot for one calendar page is due now.
Then came the headache of choosing a venue and booking it. It cost me 7 days of hard work, several nights of sleep and some real good deal of time to choose one or rather I would say "to find one" venue. After such a hard work, I finally narrowed down two places in my nearby shopping mall. One is an open food court and another is an outlet of a coffee shop chain. The second one obviously worked out well for a launching party. The venue is affordable and on the other hand suave enough to charm people. The initial decision for holding it on the Bengali New Year's day (i.e. 15th of April) also had to be changed because of heavy rush and overpriced venues. So now its only some wait and then I will get to the reaction of the industry professionals.
The reason I chose Bengali year as my calendar's platform, is to make it a USP. Most of our Indian photographers, be it the legends or newcomers who are even working in my city, are going by the wind. They are making English year's calendar. Without any disrespct to them or thier judgement, I do not want to go by the trend. That's where my work is different. My calendar is simply a Fashion & Glamour calendar but for the Bengali year. It would get the different time-frame for its launch every year so will catch the attractions of more people than it would have got if I would have been going with the crowd.
