From shooting a blank reel the first time he tried his hands at clicking, ace fashion photographer Vishwajeet Singh Rana has come a long way. After having picked his first SLR while a copywriter, Vishwajeet fell hook, line and sinker for photography and since then has assisted world famous photographers like Sante D’ Orazio in New York, travelled widely and contributed to the world’s most read magazines and corporate biggies.
After wowing Delhiites with his exhibition titled, Fashion etc, he talks about his travails and the road ahead.
Recalling how he began shooting and developed a style that transcends fashion into art, he says, “Visual arts always intrigued me and I wanted to become an ad filmmaker. Beginning as a copywriter I worked my way through admaking and B-school and when I was working at O&M, Delhi, the photography bug bit me. It was then that I bought my first manual SLR camera and began experimenting and self-tutoring by going out, shooting and taking notes all by myself. Later on, when I wanted to learn photography I went to Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London.”
His vibrant and expressive frames narrate their tales sans any digital doctoring, as he says, “Photoshop is not me.” Vishwajeet’s move to fashion photography was a gradual crossover to experimenting with his second love after photography — fashion. “Fashion as a subject interested me, so-much-so that at one point I wanted to become a fashion designer, but never got the chance to do it. So, I went to the London College of Fashion to learn fashion photography and got to work with models, lighting and interesting props,” he says.
Fashion bordering on art is his thing, for instance in one of the pieces on display, Scratch, on a faceless model, he lets the viewer imagine on the model the face of his wife, girlfriend, mistress or any woman.
Vishwajeet informs that he’ll soon begin working on a documentary trying to figure his roots and ancestors — the royal family of Dhaulpur, Rajasthan, where his great-grandfather used to rule. He informs, “My family moved out and only my father’s cousins remain there today. Focusing on the history I’ll try to capture what it has become today.” Saying how it’ll be different from all that he has done so far, he sums up, “It’ll have more portraits and be more people-centric — an area I’ve never delved into. In fashion photography one can create a fantasy world, but this concerns understanding my ancestral family that requires me to to gain people’s confidence before everything else.”