Mastercraftsman
The masters of the craft share their insights and photographs
Rajiv is an electrical engineer by profession with a passion for photography. He loves to travel and explore the world.
Photography gives him an excuse to travel and capture nature and landscape. Due to his immense love for travelling, his friends have named him “Ghummakkadswami” which is also his Instagram handle.
He started his photographic venture with Nikon D3000 in the year 2011 and fell in love with Nikon cameras. Presently he is using Nikon D850, D750 and Z6.
Despite his busy work schedule, Rajiv makes it a point to travel to at least two destinations in a year. Hailing from Jharkhand, he has travelled to quite a few places like Iceland, Denmark, Netherlands and Switzerland.
Apart from travelling and photography, he loves teaching. He has trained over 2000 budding photographers in various workshops and his work has been recognised at various photographic platforms.
How did you venture into landscape photography?
Travelling to new places was always on my priority list. I like to explore new places. I was always in love with mother earth and its vast landscapes. It was the year 2011, when I got my irst D S R and started learning different settings to capture the places I travelled to. It changed everything. After that, I started visiting places where I could shoot good images and photography started pushing excuses for me to travel and to capture landscapes.
What do you particularly look for when you choose your next destination and what kind of planning goes behind it?
I love mountains and cold places. I prefer to shoot in off season so that I can get different kinds of images. Planning a trip to any destination is in itself really fun. I rely on Google to locate the timing and direction of a sunrise/sunset at any particular location, the distance of the shooting location from the hotel and to pre visualise the location in a 360 degree view etc.
Any particular photographer a major way?
I have followed the works of Bryan
Peterson and Scot Kelby since my early days of photography. I have read a lot of books written by them.
So far, what has been your favourite location for photography and why?
Iceland is my favourite location. It has waterfalls, black sand beaches, snow capped mountains, glaciers, northern lights, light houses, mid night sun, beautiful churches and whatever a landscape photographer can dream about. Iceland is like my second home. I have made three trips to this beautiful country so far, but, I yearn to visit again. There is just something about Iceland that keeps calling me again and again.
According to you, what goes into making a great landscape photograph?
ove for nature. nly a true lover of nature will be able to feel it and then capture it. Coming from a technical background, I always look for any image to be technically correct, for example, the exposure, white balance, composition etc. I prefer to shoot unexplored locations rather than the iconic ones which are widely shot by different photographers. When I visit a place, I obviously do not completely miss out on shooting the iconic locations, but, while doing so, I make it a point to shoot in a different composition.
What gear do you use for landscapes and what is typically in your camera bag?
Being a Nikon user, I have following gears:
Cameras Nikon D850, D750 and Z6 enses 15 30 f/2.8 Tamron , 16 35 f/ , 2 70 f/ , 70 200 f/2.8
Speedlight: Nikon sb700
I always carry two bodies and lens covering a range of 15 200mm of focal length. A sturdy tripod, a set of ilters like CP , 3 stops soft GND, 6 stops ND, and a speedlight.
Any piece of equipment that you look forward to purchasing next?
A good tripod plays an important role in landscape photography. I have one, but, due to its weight I am planning to upgrade my tripod to a carbon ibre one. At the moment, I am just waiting for the travelling situation to get back to normal.
Apart from landscapes, what other genre of photography interests you?
ne of my friends gifted me a Nikon 200 500mm lens. To justify its availability, I started doing bird photography. As a result, I have gradually developed an interest in birds and have visited a few bird sanctuaries to try my hands on bird photography.
Any tips or advice you’d like to share with aspiring photographers?
Composition is very important in landscape images. The irst and last rule of composition in photography is that there is no rule in photography. Yet, in between, there are numerous compositional rules. ne must follow those rules till they get to the last one, which is about trying to break those rules and make new ones. In a nutshell, if you don’t know compositional rules, try to learn and if you know them, try to break those.