Ace photographer Himanshu Khagta tells Tushar Kaushik about life behind the lens.
It is hard not to be envious of 25-year-old Himanshu Khagta’s life. He travels extensively, takes breathtaking pictures and shoots documentaries for a living, embarks on adventurous trips at a moment’s notice, and generally enjoys life. Read on to know what it takes to achieve this utopian state:
Where do you spend most of your time?
In Chandigarh and Shimla. Rest of the time I keep travelling, I can’t sit in one place.
When did photography happen?
Right after school. I was doing it in college, and became a professional in college itself.
How did you become a professional photographer?
I learnt everything I could about photography online, from tutorials, videos and websites, and grasped everything. I then started travelling to take good pictures, and then I started liking the travelling part more than photography (laughs). I used to upload pictures on Flickr, and I started getting calls from travel magazines, so that’s how it started. I then realised that I can sell things online, I got more motivated and then I started travelling to different places.
You’ve done many adventurous, crazy things. How did these come happen?
Once I got a call from my friend who asked if I wanted to go to Ladakh with them on a tractor, and they were doing it to create some world record, so I was like, chalo.
Another time, when we drove from Chandigarh to Kanyakumari and back, again on a tractor, that time I was the navigator. That was pretty boring actually, as I was driving an Innova at the speed of 30 km/hr.
What should youngsters do to become photographers?
Qualifications don’t matter in this field. Till now, no one has ever asked me for any. What matters is the pictures that you’ve taken, if they’re nice and relevant, they will definitely be published, they don’t even have to be beautiful all the time. People should be aware of this fact. You should have a portfolio online.
You have an impressive clientele - what does it take to bag such projects?
For me it all happened automatically. My first assignment was for The International Herald Tribune, which is now the global edition of New York Times. Then from there one thing led to another, so there’s no fixed plan, and it’s kind of tricky to earn money in this field. If you want to earn money you need to work as a fashion photographer or a wedding photographer, and if you wanna enjoy life (laughs), be an editorial photographer. So you have to have a niche.
