Engineers turned photographers

If you have watched Aamir Khan’s 3 Idiots, one would have definitely remembered Farahan Qureshi (character played by Madhavan), an engineering student crushing his own dreams of becoming a wildlife photographer for the sake of his father. There are many such Farahans, some changed their engineering profession while some take it as a hobby along with their engineering job.City Express looks at few such engineers cum photographers on the occasion of World Photography Day on August 19. Sriram V is an engineering graduate with Computer Science at BMS College of Engineering, Sriram says photography always interested him. After working as a techie in an IT firm and couple of other jobs; Sriram took photography more seriously. He travelled across the country.According to him, travelling and taking pictures is like interacting with people all over the country.One of Sriram’s unforgettable experiences is his journey from Bangalore to Delhi on the Sampark Kranthi. In two days, he spent `275 and took hundreds of photographs.Later he made a video out of these pictures and called it The Great Indian Railway Bazaar. Sriram who owns Canon 5D Mark II does freelancing and loves to take portrait pictures.Ravi M R, a mechanical engineering graduate who works as lead engineer at General Electricals loves to take black and white photographs.“Photography was not my cup of tea. I used to take pictures with a normal camera just like anyone.After, I became an engineer, I got a basic digital camera.This is when I started developing an interest in photography. I even went for a short term training course in Bangalore School of Arts and Photography,” he adds.Ravi even thought of leaving his five digit salary for the sake of photography.“But I realised I am a fresher in photography. But that will be my passion and one day I will become a full time photographer,” he explains.Ravi owns Canon 500 D which he got from the US.Kiran, an engineering graduate in electrical engineering from Mysore started photography as a hobby. Later, he started reading books and blogs of well known photographers.He then took his hobby seriously.He has undergone no training, but Kiran freelances.He freely uploads pictures on wikepedia too.Residing in Mysore, Kiran is into organising My Photo Week, a walkathon in Mysore. “It happens once a month. I have created a group on Facebook and there are 137 members today. I normally mention the names of places where we will take pictures. Based on the votes, we chose one location and we take pictures.One location and many ideas,” he explains.So far, he has attended ten such walkathons. Kiran who owns Fujifilm finepix S1500 dreams to own Canon 1D Marck 111 which costs `4 lakh. “I am sure I will own it one day,” he adds.