For that perfect shot
Saurabh Chatterjee is a classic example to his students on how to follow one’s passion
By : amrita paul
Update: 2015-04-27 00:59 GMT
Hyderabad: Photographer Saurabh Chatterjee, who has trained around 3,000 people in cities like Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Chennai, recently received the Brands Academy Educational Excellence award from the management consultancy, Brands Academy.
Chatterjee, who has been living in Hyderabad for the last six years, says, “I got my first digital camera when I was pursuing my Masters in Pune; after that I worked in the IT industry for about 10 years, pursuing photography only on the weekends.”
Saurabh, who has done a certificate course in photography from the Osmania University and an advanced course from Glasgow, started training people four years back when his friends wanted to learn the basics of photography.
“Slowly, word started spreading and I started teaching photography in Oakridge and Indus International schools as well, apart from my workshops. It was getting extremely difficult to manage a full-time job alongside and I finally quit in 2013,” he says.
The biggest challenge of being a freelancer, says Saurabh, is that he doesn’t have a fixed salary. But the perk is that he is free to take off anytime, and pursue his love for travelling and photography.
“I am not keen on living an extravagant life, but I want to make sure that I earn enough to sustain myself and travel where I want to,” says the photographer, who also takes his students on photo tours every year. He has already planned a trip to the Zanskar valley in Ladakh in July and to Spiti valley in the Himachal in September.
At the end of every workshop, Saurabh leaves his students with a vital advice. “Several years back when we were still using film cameras, we would think 10 times before taking a shot, because there was a certain cost involved. Now, with the advent of digital photography, we at times take the medium for granted. So I tell my students that even today, they should aspire for a single perfect shot instead of a hundred mediocre ones,” he adds.