MANGALURU: Hailing from a humble background, struggling his way through and fighting many odds to pursue his dream, this photographer from Dakshina Kannada has won eleven international awards, especially for wedding photography. He has created timeless memories which are emotional and offbeat.
It’s the story of a boy brought up in a small village, Ujire, and dreaming to reach the sky. Meet Sandeep Holla, 25, a talented photographer, who many nights sleeps holding the camera thinking, “how I can take better photos?” His friends say that despite poor vision in his left eye following an accident, he recovered, stood the ground and growing day by day as a better photographer.
Holla says he is simply passionate to tell stories through his lens. “In my childhood, I was interested in painting. I was painting people, nature and animals and even won awards at inter-school competitions. I think this love for capturing elements drove me towards photography. I developed an interest in photography during my graduation days,” he says.
After he started clicking wedding photographs, he participated in the Wedisson contest. Holla now has 11 international awards given to him by this UK-based organisation, which confers awards and gives rating for photographers working in the field of wedding photography. He is the youngest Indian to achieve this feat and he is currently the best Indian photographer on Wedisson platform. Looking at his remarkable achievement, he is made as South India mentor for Panasonic Luminex. He captures nature, snakes and his best interest lies in capturing emotions that goes into a wedding. He says he wants to bring out the joy and emotions that go into a wedding in his frames. This, he says, happens by experimenting and by travelling into their minds, and understanding their love.
Holla was discouraged by a local photographer when his mother gifted a basic camera Nikon D 5100 to him using insurance money. Before that he was borrowing cameras from his friends. As he was discouraged and sent away saying he had no future in the field, Holla started learning on his own making the best use of internet. He is a kind of an Ekalavya of yore who learnt archery on his own.
As he started learning right from the basics, he became better and better as a lensman. “During this time I found a profile of Tarun Khiwal, a spell-binding photographer. Looking at his photographs, I kept thinking that he was a human being like me. And if he could do, so could I. From then on, my journey began and it’s going great at this moment,” he says. After that, he didn’t look back. He started to earn money through his profession. He discontinued his degree while he realised that his career lay in photography. His aim of earning was to buy a better camera to capture the depth of his subject. Before his 20th birthday, he made sufficient money to buy Cannon EOS 70 D and Cannon EOS 5 D Mark which cost him RS 33,20,000. “Now I have better versions. They are 5D Mark 4 and Panasonic Luminex S1, S1R,” he says.
Holla says his photography voyage to Himalayas was an enriching and out-of-the world experience. “A photographer always looks for picturesque views. However, at the Himalayas, every bit was breath-taking. I had to use all my skills to make the scene life-like,” he says.
“At the last village (Mana), I saw a horse and a beautiful hill behind it. The clouds were touching the hill and the horse was eating the grass. There are borders politically, but for nature there are no borders and even for the horse. This element of borderless world is what I tried to show in this photo,” he adds.
Vivek Gowda, his friend and partner in photography, says Holla’s journey has been remarkabe.
During his final year degree course, he had a major accident which broke his jaws and partially impaired his left eye. He has only 20% visiblity in his left eye. But he fought this odd. He gets tired while taking photos but it’s his passion which drives him. He is committed, hardworking, curious and passionate. Vivek and Holla had co-founded a production company named Blink Films. Both have shot many events pan-India.
Another friend, Mohammad Sharukh adds saying, "He has faced many odds but nothing has stopped him from becoming what is he today. He is one of the best photographers in India.