Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ashok Manick. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Ashok, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?
I have always been interested in visual storytelling. I use to watch lots of movies and question myself why they chose certain lenses for this scene and the technical decision behind the scene. It intrigued me to read more about cinematography and the person behind the camera. I started to read blogs and interviews of famous cinematographers and photographers I was totally into it, and that’s the point where I decided to choose an artistic path professionally, but that was not an easy path I understood that I have to start with basic knowledge of handling the camera and their technical aspect to tell a story because telling a story in a 2D form is a little complicated compared to cinematography. I decided to understand the whole aspect of using cameras, so after a lot of struggle, I bought my camera and started taking pictures. I learned everything by watching YouTube videos and reading blogs from some photographers. I started taking inspiration from movies and from other photographers. I struggled a lot at the starting stages because I could not get the images I had in my mind, then I took things seriously and decided to do a diploma course in Photography.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
As a photographer, I started exploring different genres like portraits, landscapes, events, and action photography. At first, I didn’t know how to promote my work or how to reach clients, but I got lots of support from my friends, they spread my work through word of mouth. I did lots of free work on campus with students to get the experience and meet some random people show them my previous works and offer them a free portrait session. Then when I gained confidence, I started developing my work into a business, I took on many projects and assisted other photographers during their shoots to learn how they handle their clients and real-time experiences.
Portraits are one of my favorite genres, and it allows me to get lots of experience from developing the theme for the shoot, creating look-books where I keep a note of what type of color I like to use in a photoshoot and write a script to define the mood of the shoot, location scouting, using props and directing the other person and explaining the poses, conveying my ideas to the client, these things excite me. These photoshoots gave me experience in how to run a business and satisfy the client experience. I am always committed to satisfying my client’s needs, I’ll set up a meeting with clients to know what they have in mind or I will suggest some ideas for photoshoots. On location, I will make them feel comfortable and make things easy to get the best out of them.
Then I got an offer as a Photographer from The Reflector The Student News Paper of Mississippi State University. I was really excited by this offer, which gave me a chance to meet photographers from different styles and work on journalist perspectives like taking pictures for specific articles, pushing me out of the box, and thinking differently. I gained lots of experience working with my fellow photographers.
Portraits are $250 for the entire session (multiple locations).
Wedding photography is $500.
Other events are $450 no time limits.
Willing to travel anywhere in the state.
Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
I started photography as landscape, street, and architecture photography, then i assisted in many portrait photoshoots to gain experience. I use to go to public events to tell an interesting stories. I used all these opportunities to improve my skills. I use to offer free portrait sessions to promote my work. I work on multiple genres like street, portrait, couple, weddings, birthday events, landscape, architecture, sports, documentary, and Photojournalism. I feel proud to cover one of the SEC Football games and a couple of Volleyball games at Mississippi state university. Portraits are one of my favorite genres, I like the whole process of developing the theme for the shoot, look-books, location scouting, costumes, using props, controlling lights and directing the other person, and explaining the poses, conveying my ideas to the client, these things excite me, portraits give me opportunity work with a different set of people and various themes. I do lots of preparation before the photoshoot like writing scripts or developing some storyboard to show my client what type of style I’m looking for in the shoot. These are some of the steps that I used to build my audience
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
n the future, I’m looking to develop a photography business and set up a studio to do my own projects like fashion photography and studio portraits. To expand my business to reach more people and do more wedding events and work on other genres, then start a video production like shooting music videos and cinematic wedding videos.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a.m_photostories/
Image Credits
Izzy Lemming Meagan Leanne Mr&Mrs. Praveen AJ Williams Briana Taylor Emily Erwin Altman Biggs