Photography is born out of sci­ence & engi­neer­ing, but the dri­ving force behind it has always been art. One cen­tury and many inven­tions later it is now an art, tech­nol­ogy as well as an industry.

The world with­out pho­tog­ra­phy would be like a house with no win­dows, a book with empty pages, com­mu­ni­ca­tion with­out spo­ken lan­guages, etc. The word ‘imag­ine’ would dom­i­nate our day-to-day activ­ity so much that all we do is dream and the visual object that came to be known as ‘pho­to­graph’ will never see the day.

I got the chance to talk to a group of tal­ented adver­tis­ing & graphic stu­dents last week at the First Media Group’s IMAGO Advertising School. They were kind enough to give me 45 min­utes of their time to lis­ten to what I have to say and later stretched me another 15 min­utes for a wor­thy Q&A session.

The gen­eral pre­sump­tion of pho­tog­ra­phy to an out­sider in this coun­try is that it’s glam­orous and dreamy, it is a sur­real thing to do to earn a liv­ing for, espe­cially in a place where pho­tog­ra­phy is barely con­sid­ered as a real-job-an-honest-man-does.

People here also asso­ciate pho­tog­ra­phy with the glam­ourous world of nudity, fash­ion & girls, it’s always fun to see the look in their eyes when ques­tions were answered and lis­tened to with a lot enthu­si­asm. It’s great to be heard.

If you think pho­tog­ra­phy is not a career, wake up and smell the cof­fee! if you think pho­tog­ra­phy is all about you & the vision, shame on you! It’s all about team­work, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, human inter­ac­tion and a lot of patience! You only see the glam­our and girls ini chic-lit nov­els & America’s Next Top Model, what goes on behind the cur­tain is so much more than the skin & make-ups.

Interesting to jump ship & start a pho­tog­ra­phy career?

PS. Special thanks goes to my pal Andre, a tal­ented art director/designer who now teaches in IMAGO. Check out his bril­liant work here.