There are two sides to Raj Mistry – the bright and cheerful side which comes out in his commercial photography and the “grungy” side which he expresses in his personal work. Fotoflock.com got to know more about this intriguing photographer.

You are involved in many different types of photography: commercial photography, landscape photography, people photography. What would you say is your main focus?
My main focus is on commercial photography – I’ve done campaigns for many different brands including Pantaloons and Siyaram’s.

Which was your favourite campaign to work on?
My favourite campaign was a jewellery campaign for Taraash. The reason I enjoyed this campaign was that I had absolute freedom to do whatever I wanted, and the focus was on quality rather than quantity.

How would you describe your style?
My commercial work is as per the client’s requirements. However, my personal work is quite different: it is fantasy-based and has a grungy, video game feel to it.

Do you play video games yourself?
No, not really, but I love their look and feel.

What attracted you to fantasy?
I love the unusual outfits, the unusual hair, the unusual settings. I like it that it looks unreal. I also enjoy the fact that there are no rules; there is so much freedom.

What is your attitude towards technology?
I’m a fan of technology. Nowadays you can’t survive without Photoshop. I believe that Photoshop is a form of art! I used to use a film camera but I switched to digital due to the demands of the market. Nowadays it is difficult to use a film camera – it’s quite difficult to buy camera rolls and there aren’t so many places to process your photographs.

As for digital photography, I like it that you can make changes during and after the shoot. There’s more room for improvisation. However, there’s a danger of getting carried away – you have to know where to draw the line.

Looking through your (commercial) photographs put me in a good mood: the colours are cheerful and all the people are smiling. Am I right in guessing that you're an optimist?
No, I’m not actually. I had to shoot those photographs in a certain way due to the demands of the client – they want lively pictures with lots of light and energy. However, in my own personal work, you won’t find any smiles. The only smile is on my face!

Who has inspired you?
David Lachappelle because I find his style very fresh, very colourful and very different from other photographers. He’s not conventional.

Among Indian photographers, I like Prabuddha Dasgupta. I love his black and white photographs. I like his style because his shots always look natural and never forced.

I’d also like to mention my friend Tejal Patni. We studied together and it’s actually because of him that I became interested in photography. I’m a very technical guy and one day he asked for some technical help. While helping him, it occurred to me that photography was something that might interest me.

He now lives in Dubai and he works on fashion photography and editorials. For some reason, although our styles are very different, they never clashed. 

You hold photography workshops. Who do you conduct these workshops for?
So far I’ve held one or two workshops with five to six guys in total. I prefer smaller workshops because you can connect with people more easily, you can answer their questions. I’m also a bit of a perfectionist – I like to tell people what to do and how to do it correctly.

Would you like to hold more of these workshops in the future?
Yes, I’d love to do that; it would give me great personal satisfaction. There are so many talented people out there but they don’t know what to do or how to do it. I’d love to be able to teach them.

Most of your photography is of people. What do you think is the biggest challenge when shooting people?
I believe that beauty is there in each and every model, you just have to know how to get it out. I think the trick is not to force the model – if you allow the model to get into a comfort zone then you’ll get a good shot.

What are your plans for the future?
In the future I’d like to become a cinematographer and start shooting my own films. I’m thinking about doing a course, either in London or New York.

Do you think your interest in films has influenced your photography? Any films in particular?
Yes, of course. I like Bollywood films a lot because, after all, the Bollywood film itself is fantasy. However I like Hollywood films too.


Photos by Raj Mistry | Fotosocial