Haegwan Kim: Let’s look at how you define success.
Kalyan Varma: Now success can mean different things actually; it’s a very valid point, because for most people success is what society makes… thinks of them. But I think at a personal level success has to be a very personal goal. You can be poor, you can be the poorest man on earth, you might not have any money but you could be a very successful person for yourself.
I think a person needs to be mature enough to realise that a successful life is for yourself, it’s not for society because we are grown in a framework where we are meant to do more for society than for yourself. So I think for me success is I was thankful enough maybe because of my influence on creative life. For me the success was a very personal thing in a sense. I want to do these things in my life and they’re not financial goals, you know. A lot of people also associate success as equal to having and earning so much money.
But I think success is more about being happy about yourself and being happy with what you do and taking pride in everything that you do, and looking forward to the next day, looking forward to Monday morning, basically.
HK: So the reason you became a professional photographer is just to look forward to next Monday morning?
KV: Absolutely. I took up photography because I like photography. I worked hard as a photographer because I wanted to take good pictures, not because I wanted to earn money. But if you’re good at what you do money will automatically come. We live in times when money is never an issue; I think there is enough money generally, and if you offer the right service, the right product and are good at what you offer, making money is one of the easiest things to do. So I think even in a developing country like India these kinds of opportunities are there right now.
HK: There are many types of photographers; for instance I met Eric Cheng from who is an underwater photographer…
KV: Underwater, okay.
HK: Yes, and in your case, wildlife, so can I ask the reason why you chose that specific field?
KV: Actually it’s the other way around, frankly, because I always liked wildlife since I was a kid, and I used to go to wildlife places, not as a photographer but just to see wildlife and enjoy the wildlife. And about a decade ago I started slightly more serviceable photography which is slightly difficult, thankfully digital cameras came out and made photography much easier. So I really liked photography as a visual medium and I like wildlife, and for me wildlife photography was a merger of two of my favourite passions. But still I think I’m a wildlife person first and then a photographer. Photography is a tool for me to share my wildlife experiences and probably use it as a medium for conservation.
HK: Not only talking pictures, you are getting involved with activities of the free software foundation and creative comments. Why you have a link to technological side?
KV: Because partly photography has also got technicalities in how you edit and all that, so coming from a technology background you’re much better at handling the issue of photography than otherwise, so that gives you much advantages. But at a higher level and more importantly I think it’s the way you think, the way you approach a problem.
I think engineers tend to approach a problem with a a certain approach which artists might not. So as an artist, you as an engineer come in, you might not be right, but you’re still one of the key persons who thinks differently about a problem. And I think that gives you that edge because of creating that nation being different about things. But probably the biggest thing of all and at a personal level it has been how I approach things, how I approach work, how I approach the philosophy of my work.
I think in my life Open Source and Creative Comments have been highly influential philosophies, way back in my college actually. The way of thinking and the same thing applies to photography. It made a lot of difference in my life and I think I am what I am today is probably because of applying those fundamentals of open source and creative comments in the field of photography which not many people, in fact hardly any people have done it before. Because photography is creative art people who are very protective about their work and once you go and you ascertain the equations in the market because suddenly if you start giving it out free other photographers are under the pressure to give it out free too. So you cannot shake the market up here in that way and use it.
HK: What was the results from that activity? You offer all the contents of your pictures and your works, what did you learn from them, what did you learn from that experience?
KV: I think that firstly there are good people out there and that there is something called altruism which is if people benefit from something they usually like to reciprocate. I think not everyone is like that but a big population is like that. So even though my work was three people who consume that work, had great respect for it, like the work so much to a point where they were either ready to financially pay for it, in some ways for the photography, or they would help you in other ways. So I think it’s a very strong thing of having belief in the goodwill of people. There are more good people out there than bad people.
HK: Agree. The Internet improves there is becoming more and more controversy about this intellectual properties and those kinds of things and although we already talked about this, there is two sides, one is a closing-side and one is an open-side, like Richard Stallman from the foundation and Professor Lessig and Joi Ito from creative comments. Can you tell me your perspective on the future of the intellectual property?
KV: I think it is wrong to think that one will win over the other. I think there is going to be a space for both and I think it’s a good thing because there is still certain pieces of work which need to be protected and be guided by corporate loss. So depending on the context, it is a very context space you can have your right because if a guy is producing music I think it is important that he gets benefit out of it, you know.
I would think that people who want to pay him, even though he releases free mp3s on his website with a donation and I think it will purely come by attitudes of people and Iam an optimist about this is that people are good people and they’re ready to respect the freedom that they get with the product. And not just freedom but also the quality of the products. You get good quality people ready to pay for it and you get freedom with your product with very little to pay for it too.
HK: How do you take a good picture? [Laugh]
KV: [Laugh] That’s a very good thing to say. I think the best photographers in the world are the ones who are not photographers. Photography is still a tool for them and the best photographers are the ones who specialize in something and have really gotten into the subjects. If you look at Steve MaCurry who did the famous Uptown Girls, he spent six months in Afghanistan, really understanding the problem and because he knew the problem he was really able to portray that issue. So in the case of wildlife you cannot have wildlife naturalist conservationist. I don’t think you can do good wildlife photography, you know.
Let it be you’re a food photographer; if you’re not a food lover it’s very difficult to be a good food photographer. And I think you need to immerse yourself in that field before you can be a good photographer and I think that will follow by itself. There is no easy cheat sheet. Fine, you can have fancy equipment, you can use some devices basically plan the position to get good pictures, but if you want spectacular pictures you need to go one step beyond that.
HK: What would be your advice to achieve success?
KV: I think forget about excellent courses and just go out there, do what you love and if you do what you love and if you put your heart and soul into it, you will be the best in whatever it is that you do. People will appreciate and even pay for that service. And you’ve seen examples with, let’s say, Apple computer, where even though the laptop is twice as expensive, people pay because they get a good quality product out of it.
And I think that the same thing with anything and if you really are passionate about something you will be good at it, and people more often than not they look at the newspaper and say, oh, this job gives me a lot of salary, so let me go there, but people need to look back and say, you know what, and you will have hiccups, you know, it will take you, maybe, two months or two years to get there. But I think it’s to hold on and you will get there. There’s a famous saying you know, if you badly want something the universe will conspire to make sure it happens to you, and it might just take time but it will.
One last bit that I want to add is about the creative field. It’s funny because everyone in the world has almost seen the painting; they know exactly how it looks but yet it’s the most costly painting. So it’s like a musician you know, Michael Jackson is probably the greatest artist ever and people have heard Michael Jackson, but keep listening to him because you like the music, it comes a bit more.
But for the first time in history of creative fields we have a platform – that’s the Internet. To get your work of art out, let it be music, let it be a feature film, let it be a photograph or a painting, and if your work is good enough, it’s an easy platform to call it, because 20 years ago to be a photographer you had to do an exhibition in cities, you had to publish a book and all that to get your work out. But now you can just put it on Flicker and if your picture is great people will automatically come and respond to you.
So the first time in the history of earth, artists have a platform and it’s the greatest evolution, the survival of the fittest. So if you’re good at what you do you will succeed in being an artist because traditionally being an artist was very difficult because it’s not just the art that you had to worry about but how you market you work and how you get your work out. But now we have internet which takes care of itself.
Kalyan Varman is a wildlife photographer.
Note: We spent a lot of time talking before the interview.
Haegwan Kim is a writer who was born in Osaka, Japan in 1989 and grew up near Tokyo where went to a Korean school for 12 years.
