Interview with Vikram Hingmire

Tell us about your journey from being a Landscape Architect to a Photographer

For 20 years I worked as a landscape architect. I was in India with my own office, and then I shifted to Dubai for my further development. During that process, of course, I traveled a lot and understood a lot of architecture around the world. Dubai was a hot place at that time where all architects, designers in all fields were working. It was a huge exposure for me. Basically, they came there for the design and there are pros and cons for that too. Some people liked it, some people didn’t, but I was one of them who didn’t. I got out of that and was looking for a better work life balance and had had enough of corporate life. I just shut down everything one night, sent my resignation and went to Ooty.  I don’t remember what I said to Anu ma’am, or Iqbal sir. I said either you give me the admission or I’ll be working as a watchman here.I am not going back to Dubai. I just fell in love with Ooty and the one year there was amazing. It was a process of unlearning. I wanted to scratch off and go back to zero. I used to do a little bit of wildlife photography during my travels and I thought  I should learn a little bit more sincerely about photography.I didn’t want to become like a trigger happy guy – one out of 10 gets fluked.

Tell us about your journey as a photographer post LLA

First two years I was trying to figure out what exactly I wanted to do. Since my background was in architecture. So I thought architecture would be a good point to start with because I understand a little bit of that, but, because of Mihir Hardikar’s class, I started liking food and then I jumped into food and it was just a kind of hobby initially.

One restaurant approached us and they needed a particular kind of style, so we shot that. When we start looking at food as a type of photography and the commercial approach to it, you tend to need more people around you, like a stylist, prop collectors and other lighting units etc.

I was trying to become  more of an independent one-man show because working in India and working out outside India has a major difference. You get a lot of help out there in India, with a little bit less financial burden on you, but if you come to Australia, you are supposed to put a lot of money to get that sort of commercial help.

So yeah, you have to be like one man show all the way from sweeping the studio to cleaning all the equipment, props, everything and then again, you go back to the shoot also. But it was fun to learn. Basically, I was just evaluating between food and architecture. When I started coming into architecture, I felt more at  ease there. My architectural knowledge helped me understand the language while talking to architects.

Within the first 15 minutes, we are all on the same page, which was not the case in food because I wouldn’t understand what the chefs are talking about, what style they’re talking about. So I used to research a lot before shooting. So it’s a good thing. Nothing wrong with it, but architecture was a bit easier for me. I’m looking at architecture more from the commercial aspect and have changed my portfolio accordingly. So you can say I am an architecture and interior photographer, but I don’t say no to food projects too.

Tell us a little bit about Architecture Photography

I used to look at architecture as a complete package, but then when I started going into it deeper I realized that there are so many branches. Each magazine requires a different approach towards photography. Architects, interior designers, stylists, builders, plumbers – each one requires a very different approach for their product to be shot. It depends on who hires you. Based on that the portfolio you give them also changes. It’s an important thing to discuss. We meet and then we discuss who is involved in it, who is going to present what and who will be there to show the details. This happens before every shoot.

Tell us about your approach to commercial architecture photography

Whenever I get an assignment I ask the architect a few questions. For 2 reasons – one, because the architect knew that baby from the beginning. So it is important to understand what he wants to highlight because these photographs are going to be representative of his work. He or she has to be on that same level as us. It is like immortalizing that person’s work through these photographs. So we need to talk with him as many times as required. Getting information about what he thought about the lighting conditions. Is there a particular texture to be highlighted?  Is that in new material he tried or is there a combination of materials he was looking to highlight? And in that particular light or that particular time. Then when you visit a particular place, of course you will check the light conditions and all those things. But what I like more about it is a human figure against that particular volume, that itself gives a very unique character to that particular house, it gives a scale, it helps understand how large compared to that person who is going to be there and what he thought about it. How that light itself affects that entire room, you know, from a mood point of view or like the texture highlighting point of view or what it is going to do at that macro level.

So these things, we definitely need for two reasons . One, You need to find out the correct light conditions when you’re shooting and when you are both producing that, will you be able to translate that more through your post-production? Of course, everybody does post-production, we try to avoid post-production and do everything organically. That’s a good thing. But sometimes some architects prefer to show everything, whatever is available, it might be an exit sign or a lamp post. Sometimes some architects said that, alright, if we don’t show the light switch that sort of thing, so we need to balance it out. Sometimes we assume a few things as a photographer, saying it doesn’t look good, but if the stockholder or the architects need that particular information from their point of view, we definitely need to cater to that too. So these are the very practical points that you will face when you meet architects and the other clients.

And then of course then you have your own artistic approach for each photograph that is your own style. You do that, but also you need to understand that there are people who are looking at it from this point as well.

nterplay between your food and architecture work

Definitely. Somehow unconsciously, my work became a bit more minimalistic, in architecture and even interior photography. Even though the interior shots had too many props, I was trying to get them as minimalistic as possible, compared to the previous picture. That is the big influence from the 3-4 photographers who I follow right now. It is helping me unclutter.

Sometimes I become a bit rude and tell the clients not to put too many things. I was not like that before, but the photographs are looking better I feel. You need to be like that, to make sure that the things you don’t feel comfortable with in the frame, you get rid of them.

Lot of other elements like light, texture, all these elements become more important compared to the props. That gives a photograph a very different direction altogether. Initially, the photographs were more of an influence of my previous travels, but now I’m a little bit more settled and trying to get rid of all this clutter. So I think that is the next step for me to improve myself.

Any Advice to Aspiring Architecture Photographers?

So, even in architecture, there is something for the real estate projects, real estate agents need everything so fast. Shoot and the next day, within 24 hours you deliver them those images.

It’s good to get money out of it. But focus more energy on the really beautiful architectural structures where no matter how big or small they are, it’s more of the materials used, the details used. If you can discover those, that will bring you up more in terms of your portfolio. When kids come out of LLA, they will need to see what is commercially viable and what is artistically viable. And then you try and balance it out. At the end you will come to know that if I do this particular branch, I will be able to manage both.  And that is their kind of a niche. It will work out for them