BENGALURU : The year 2020 was a huge spoiler as far as travel plans were concerned. It was no different for city-based photographer Apoorva Prasad. In an attempt to bring together her profession and passion of meeting people from different parts of the world, she is doing a photo series of people from different countries. She has until now covered 20 countries by shooting 50 models and plans to continue her series on her Instagram page (@apoorva_prasad).
Staying within the confines of four walls for more than eight months has taught people to try out innovative ideas to deal with situations. For Prasad, it was a similar case. Her love for photography was so much that physical restrictions could not stop her from clicking the muse she loves the most – people. “During the lockdown I was introduced to virtual shoots, which helped me with my urge to photograph more and more people.
But subconsciously, it opened a window to the world which was right in my room,” says the 24-year-old photographer who shot the images on apps like Zoom, Google Duo and Shutterbug. It became a new hobby which allowed her to interact with more people, virtually. “I reach out to models through hashtags of the city. If my style of work matched theirs, I took it forward,” says Prasad, who has been doing photography for the last 6-7 years.
She adds that people from different countries have different facial features and skin textures and accordingly, she changed her approach of taking pictures. “This also turned into a lesson in photography for me,” says Prasad who has worked with models from countries like Japan, Finland, Mexico, Jamaica, Australia, etc. Speaking about the ‘new friends’ that she worked with, the first thing she noticed was their professionalism, unlike her previous experiences. “Though it was a friendly project, all of them treated it like any other other professional project and were sharp on time. For instance, all of them arranged their own props,” says Prasad.
However, language was a huge barrier for the young photographer. “I was shooting with an Argentinian model and we had a communication gap because neither of us understood each others’ language. I had to literally do the poses and tell her what to do,”says Prasad, adding that with so many travel restrictions, these pictures are like her passport to the world.