I am Akshaya Vaidyanathan 23 year old based out of Chennai. I am a full time professional photographer. I specialize in documenting weddings, portraiture, fashion, architecture and food Photography. I finished my schooling from PSBB Chennai, Finished my B. Sc Electronic Media from MOP Vaishnav, went to Ooty and did my PG in Professional Photography from light and life academy.
Right now I run my own photography brand called POO STORIES and I am a freelancer who loves to travel.
Becoming a photographer, I wouldn’t call it a dream. I always wanted to do something in the creative field. It was during the second year of college I realized I love doing photography and that is when I decided to go and pursue a degree in photography rather than limiting it to only a hobby. It was not an easy decision as it was a time when the competition was really high and the scope for finding good work was difficult. My inspiration was no specific person but the whole fact that photography helps me communicate to people visually and the whole feeling of seeing a smile on someone’s face after they see your picture inspires me.
I was 20 when I graduated and I decided to head to Light and life academy to do my PG in professional photography. First I think my entire family, except my parents were in shock as I come from a typical bhramin family where girls get married at the age of 21. They were all worried about me being a freelancer. After my degree I decided to start working all by myself.
Initially first few months were really slow, as you are this new young person into this field who no one recognizes. Slowly as I started getting work age became a hindering factor. I was just 21 and a girl. This stopped people from giving me work as they thought I wasn’t matured enough to handle work alone.
I am someone who loves to shoot weddings so initially I had issues in making people understand that I could handle an entire wedding alone. As and when they saw my output they started trusting me. Through word of mouth and social media my work started getting stabilized.
There were times when clients would include a clause where they would be OK to pay only after seeing the output as I was a new young girl in this industry.
In a way all these hurdles made me work hard and get to the place I am in right now. I am indeed very happy but this is not it! I also believe is this is not even 10% of what I want to achieve there is lots to do and way more to achieve.
I believe in dreams and by dreams I mean those dreams where you set a target for yourself and achieve it and later set new goals. There is no end to dreaming but while at it, dream of things that you know will make sense even after 5 years. Dream of things you will be proud of at the end of the day and not things that are meaningless. There is nothing in this world that can’t be achieved if you are determined and working towards it whole heartedly and never getting deviated from your goal.
Just follow your heart. If you know you want it badly just keep working for it. There will be people and things stopping you but remember you have one life and you need to be happy living it and achieve whatever you want at one point all these people who stopped you will come behind you seeing you succeed.
Never do something for money do it for the happiness you get out of it. The moment you are happy with what you do, you will experience the sweetness of success and satisfaction. Travel as much as possible and meet as many new people as you can because an inspiration can be found even at a new person you talk to at a tea stall.
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