Atul Kasbekar has an eye for 'i'

MUMBAI: Men envy him for his job, his deft skills, his targets and his machine. In the order - Sculpting India’s most coveted calendars, making a regular face look like a diva, beautiful starlets and a thing called camera, respectively. Many guys still can’t believe that he gets paid for clicking portfolios of top models across India and beyond.

Well, the envy he stirs around men, and the charm he rubs off around women, are more than an occupational hazard. Atul Kasbekar has clicked his way to the top perch of India’s top fashion photographer, with lot of hours put in the dark room of hard work, dedication and relentless passion. This graduate-topper from the Brooks Institute, Santa Barbara, USA, literally looked at all angles but backwards, since he started shooting in 1991 after training with the best in Los Angeles. His craft has added a new spark to many editions of Cosmopolitan, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, L`Officiel and Vogue, while his advertising quiver packs industry’s most outstanding arrows for clients like Adidas, Airtel, Coke, Evian, Garnier, Gillette, Hero Honda, Hutch, Hyundai, ITC, L’Oreal, Lee, Levis, Tag Heuer, Tissot, and many more.

Not many know that his brilliantly-iconoclastic mind has been the force behind the iconic Kingfisher Calendar for the UB Group. Atul, also the Honorary Chairman of Photographers' Guild of India, has not only redefined calendars, but also the pages of fashion and beauty in India in every sense. That in part, explains the distinction of bagging an International Food and Beverage Creative Excellence Award.

One never takes a photo, one makes a photo. May be that’s why Gandhiji believed in equality of all men, except reporters and photographers.

Not every photographer has the power to bring out the third dimension in a shot, and it is probably because of Atul’s ironic gifts of looking beyond geometry, that he does exactly that with a natural ease. As Kim Edwards rightly captures in this sentence -  Photography is all about secrets. The secrets we all have and will never tell.

We grabbed this chance to get to know his tech-slant and his angles on various areas like photography as an art, obsolescence, real life tech friends etc. So, what are you waiting for- Say Cheese!

What's your view of technology as a prop for short-cuts or as an aid to photographers not as adept as they should be? Like is photography still very much an art in today's well-wired world?

Photography has been, still is, and will continue to remain an art form. It is however much more accessible today for anyone with an artistic eye and with competence on a computer.

In what ways do you use (if at all) technology in your profession?

We use technology in whatever ways we need to, to make the image better.

What's your favourite technology piece or gadget in daily routine? 

Anything that starts with an "i"  my iPhone , my iPad, my iMac.

Any technology that you would prefer to write off?

The Fax Machine, The Telex Machine and shortly I think The Pen and Paper. 

Your take on the degree of change from Kodak-era to the digital age and impacts on our daily lives made by stuff like Photoshop, Flickr, Instagram or Picasa?  

   

Kodak started the trend of " Instant Camera's" and turns out that photography became even more instant and in the process left a giant like Kodak behind. The digital age has made photography accessible, cheap and as instant as it can get for a vast number of people across the world. 

Any tips for amateur- fans who would love to dabble in their own ways with their smart phones and small cameras?

Keep shooting as much as possible. Save only the good images and delete the rest, you only get better with practice.