I was always interested in visual arts and tried to express my artistic side. My father is into computer hardware and software business due to this, we had a computer in our house. I got the chance to use MS Paint at a very young age, where I could scribble anything I would imagine. Later, to improve my knowledge about digital art tools, I read tutorials on Coreldraw and Photoshop from various magazines. I took classes on creating websites and I even learned how to be a DJ and always wanted to be independent.
When I went to Chandigarh to start my classes on CS (Company Secretary), I chanced upon a media institute. I was absolutely fascinated by the fact that there are places to learn and do creative things and there I met a photographer named Sudeep. Together, we decided to start an advertising company and found a way to earn money and used all the skills I had picked up earlier.
There was a time in the company when all the young members left because of parental pressure. I had no photographers with me, and the photographers I hired locally, didn’t do a satisfactory job. So eventually, I took up the camera to shoot and realized that I was quite decent with it. Gradually, I learned much more about it.
While working, I got the idea that I should create a community where photographers would benefit from. With the help of my brother Trnvir, we established the National Organisation of Talented Young Indian (NOTYi) Photographers where hundreds of photographers joined us. We made a world record of the biggest photo walk when we thrived as a community. We gathered 446 photographers around Sukhna Lake which was quite a challenging job during those days. But Unfortunately, the community broke up due to some indifference.
I decided to leave my own advertising company to start over and rejuvenate my love for creativity. I started freelance work to know how photographers work. I was mainly into commercials and films by that time but while freelancing for agencies, I got a chance to do wedding photography which was not something I actually wanted to do. After this experience, I realized how I loved to connect with new people and that weddings are the best place for it. Apart from this, the photographs I clicked were a hit as my unconventional form of taking photographs attracted people. I started getting more jobs as a wedding photographer and established a brand with the same name as NOTYi Photographers. As the name suggests, I always look for young talents who are looking for an opportunity and I have made sure that every member of this brand will be ready to help out any photographer in need.
I met the most wonderful person in this journey, my wife, who came to our company as a model and makeup artist. After we started NOTYi, there were ups and downs. She is extremely supportive of my work and motivates me immensely. At a moment when we were facing a low time, most of our editors quit their jobs, as it was a very demanding job. In order to help the company and me, my wife was quick to learn editing and took up that responsibility. Now she is quite skilled and has become the lead editor in our team. As I also believe, women can understand and represent emotions better, which makes our films standout today. Apart from that, she also manages the company.
We decided to not follow the conventional way of doing wedding photography and make films. Weddings are one of the most memorable events and we as photographers are responsible for documenting this event. We always try to string up these memories and make them into a story. For a reference, Recently at one wedding, the bride accidentally injured her leg and had to continue the wedding ceremony in a wheelchair. We as a team decided not to stop shooting as there was a lot of raw emotion brewing between the groom and the bride. The sight of how the groom helped the bride get through the ceremony with her injured leg was immensely powerful. The couple would cherish these unique memories after several years. Although family and guests of the couple asked us to stop shooting in these awkward and sad moments. But we knew this is the most powerful memory/story to pass on to future generations.
So, We believe that skill of understanding the situation and creating stories out of it is the most important thing for any photographer and what makes the photographer successful is grabbing opportunity out of anything.
In today’s world, we see photographers are over inspired and fascinated by looking at work on social media and try to replicate that. But together we need to understand that we are in the business of emotions and creating memories rather than creating trends.
-Â Hrsimrn Singh
