Retro Kolkata : First of all Heartiest congratulations for your selection in Retro Kolkata Magazine Green Edition. Please introduce yourself. Tell us about your background.
Soumik : I am Soumik Ghosh and I hail from Kolkata, India. Professionally, I am a content developer with a BBA degree but passionately I am a photographer and traveller. This passion has made to follow the unseen and capture the unheard and it turned me into a travel and documentary photographer
Retro Kolkata : How important is photography to you? How did you start photography?
Soumik : For me, Photography is the most important meal of the day. It doesn't matter if the pic is clicking and has any worth or not, but every click speaks of my perspective in front of the world. Good or bad, every photo speaks a story!
I started following my passion in 2021. After grinding at a corporate level since my gradution I reached a breaking point, where I decided I want to follow my dream. I left my job and spent my savings to start a new life of a Digital Nas a Digital Nomad who can travel and capture. In the last 12 months, I have been to 8 different trips across the country in a search of frames.
Retro Kolkata : What motivates and inspires you as a photographer?
Soumik : As a person, I live to explore various cultures and traditions and luckily being in the land of diversity is a gold mine for my inspiration. It inspires me to document various cultures that they would need to know, and that country needs to understand. The zeal to explore them and capture them with my camera inspires me.
Retro Kolkata : Which genre of photography do you like and What inspires you? Which masters of photography have inspired you in your photographic work?
Soumik : The genre preferred mostly is Travel and Documentary photography with some level of street documentation. I try to convert daily life into a fine art documentary. If I start taking the name of my inspirations then the list will go long but two people inspire me most, Ashraful Arefin, a Bangladeshi street fine art photographer and Steven McCurry, a legendary street photographer.
I try to mix my work and inspiration from both.
Retro Kolkata : What type of camera, lenses and lighting equipment do you use?
Soumik : Being a documentary and travel photographer, sun in the only lighting equipment I can use. My main camera is a Canon M50 Mark 2 with 15-45mm lens and 50mm prime lens. Being a travel photographer needs more modern gadgets to capture the moments like never seen before. For that I use my Drone, DJI Mini 2 and my action camera GoPro 8
Retro Kolkata : What subjects inspire you and prompt you to look for the shot?
Soumik : Have you ever visited mountains and seen small Shepard kids playing? Or old women cooking? Have you seen their emotions, their attire, their story? This kind of culture and emotion prompts me to take a shot. Walking on the Ghats of Varanasi at 3 am, you can find unthinkable seems that depits our daily life, that depicts our very existence and this prompts me to take a shot and let everyone else understand how diverse yet same we are.
Retro Kolkata : Do you prefer black and white shots or colour?
Soumik : I prefer colour photos. I believe each colour has its own noise and it shouts at your eyes to make you hear its vibrant story. Every colour speaks of emotion and feelings that enhance our lives.
Retro Kolkata : What is the best project you have worked on and how did you get involved with it?
Soumik : I got a very rare chance to document the harvest and plantation of Red Water lilies in West Bengal and I feel it is the best project for me in the last 1yr of being on road. I got to know from my friend and veteran photographers who also wanted to capture this moment. Luckily enough we were able to do so.
Retro Kolkata : Where would you like to be in 10 years time and what are you going to do in the next 6 months to get closer to that goal?
Soumik : 10 years is a very long time and I want to grow my art during this time. I want to capture as much as possible and bring out the true essence of human lives in front of everyone through my lens. In the next 6 months, I plan to head to the mountains and search for some stories that we haven’t heard of. I am sure it will resonate well among you guys, cause after all voice echoes in the mountains.
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