Instagram Inspiration Episode 5 - Sawan Chittora

Zig Ziglar said the real opportunities for success lies within the person and not the job. Hi, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, people across the world who are joining this and people who are gonna join us later through the recording. I welcome you all to episode number 5 of my Instagram inspiration series. Today I've got a very special guest, a very good friend of mine, and we met through Toastmasters, but it's been a real journey. I would like, like you all to welcome Savan Chittora. Savan, welcome, and so glad to have you with us.

Thank you so much, Haritosh Srivastav. It's a pleasure to be on your show, and I think we'll have some good interesting talk for everyone with us today.

Yep, I'm so looking forward to you. So before I get started, I'll ask the audience if they have any question, feel free to put it in the comment box and towards the end we'll see how many questions we can take. Also, how it works, Saavan, is that I'll be more of an interviewer asking you a few questions, few interesting one hopefully, and you will keep on answering and then we'll go through that. So let me start with the thing that you are famous for, me, and that is your photography. I'm a big fan of your candid photo shoots that you do, the different, uh, I mean, how do you do that? So, so let's walk us through, how did you find this passion and, and, and how long this journey has been and what all you have done?

Thank you so much for those kind words. Um, I think it's, uh It started a few years back, I think around 7 years back when I bought my first DSLR. And before that I used to use the roll one and which used to give you 32 pictures in a single roll. And if you get 33, you'll be lucky for that day. But so I started with that. I used to travel a lot with my father. He's been into bank and used to get his holidays every once in 2 years. So that's how it started to have an interest in nature and architecture especially. So I love monuments, I love the amazing monuments we have got in India, and I think I'm blessed to be born in India. I would say that because that got me interested into photography as a first step, and then eventually I started doing more stuff like macros, going into that new world of insects where they are so small that we can't really capture all the details, but the camera can. So that gave me an edge over what we used to see, how we used to see the world before. And since then, it's been a very amazing journey. My friends have been great. And I just built up my portfolio slowly, slowly. And people were nice. They started asking me for professional work. And I think that's how it started becoming a snowball effect. Wow.

So about 7 years, you had your halo moment. From there it has been rolling out and you have been using your shutters.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

So yeah, and talk about the professional photography. I know you have a website and you do— so how, how long have you been doing the professional photography and what all sort of things that you do?

Uh, see, I started doing professional work about, I would say, 4 years ago, uh, when few friends of mine recommended me to do a pre-wedding shoot. And since then it started becoming like, for the same couple I had to do a wedding shoot also, and which was really toll-taking because I had a full-time job. I'm a software engineer, so I can't really afford that much holidays and everything, so I can't do that much yet. But most of all, I just love doing portraits. I love doing pre-wedding shoots, and I think monuments is my topmost priority any given day if I have to pick up. Having said that, I think it's more about finding your passion and what you are good at. It's really essential for anyone to get success in any of the fields. I think we are living in an era where we have opportunities and tools to do well. If I would have thought that whatever things I'm doing today, 50 years ago it was not possible. Not 50, like 20 years ago it was not possible. The most important thing for, uh, for me, I would say that find your passion, and once you find it, uh, chase it like it is the last bus of the night. Wow.

I mean, yeah, one of the things which is very interesting that I found in my all, uh, 5 episodes— this is the 5th episode that I'm doing it— people who follow their passion become successful. I mean, they may not be professionally successful, but if you find your passion and you work on it, uh I think you get a different sort of pleasure, this different sort of satisfaction. To me, public speaking and Toastmasters is sort of my passion, and I get a great deal about it. I think about it and I get a lot of satisfaction out of it. So very, very well said. So my next question is, how do you find your passion? I mean, if it is—

okay, that's a difficult one. That's a difficult one. Um, yeah, most of us, most of us, we, uh, we are born without knowing our passion and we die without knowing our passion. It's a bit of truth, but I have to say it. I think most important thing for anyone is to how to find what you truly love, what you truly are passionate about. Uh, I think for— I believe I read it somewhere, I read a lot, I read it somewhere that to become successful in life you have to have Combination of these 3 things. Uh, one is, one is hard work, second is talent, and third is enthusiasm or passion, what we call. You can have any one of these 2, hard work or talent, but passion is essential for anything. No matter what you do, if you are not passionate, you can't be good at it. If you want to be good at it, you must have passion. And how to find your passion, what you love, is basically try out things. I think as a child, I was lucky to try out quite a few things. My parents always supported things to try out, and I did swimming, I did cricket, I played cricket, I played soccer, I learned a little bit of keyboard. I think one of the things I did, sketching, I used to do. I still do a bit of sketching whenever I get time. So I think if you try out quite a few things, you eventually figure out what you are good at, what you really love, and eventually you can become better at it. Even if you are not good or amazing at that skill at that moment, it's fine because nobody is that good, trust me, except a few people who are God-gifted. Otherwise, people like me, I mean, we all have to find our way. We have to climb our stairs and get there wherever we want to get there. So hard work will really help you to get to climb those steps and, you know, be somebody someday. So hard work can be your best friend, definitely. So coming back to the question, yes, try out a few things and then see what's good, what's not. I saw an ad about this, it was from Amazon, and how it goes, like there is a couple, looks like a husband or a wife or a boyfriend and a girlfriend, and The man had lost his memory for some accident or something he met, and the girl is basically ordering few stuff from Amazon every day, boxing kit and then DSLR camera and something and something. And eventually he's trying everything day after day, and then he's trying to recollect what he really is. I think that's what we all do. That's all we have to do.

Yeah, that's amazing that— no, I think this is what we can do. I mean, yeah, we should be, we should be lucky if we get I mean, if you find our passion, but yeah, we'll have to keep trying. Hit and try, hit and try. Maybe someday you'll hit. That's good.

Oh yes, yes.

So I think that's why people call you the master of table topics. Oh my Lord. Now that we talked about passion, um, there is— there are a lot of people who really want to do, uh, I mean, excellent photography. That's one of the hard skills in my right now, and a lot of young professionals who really want to do it professionally. If you have to give like 2 or 3 tips for them to actually take this, take their talent to the next level, what would that be?

Um, first thing and the foremost thing will be be good at whatever you do. I think you have to be really master of your craft if you want to offer that, if you want to go up in that thing. Uh, there is a saying by Abraham Lincoln, it's my favorite: whatever you do, be a good one. I think that applies to every single segment in life. So no matter what line you choose, as I said, we have almost every single tool available today, infrastructure available today, that we can make it big. And to do that, just be genius in your craft. So that's one thing, and it comes by time. You have to put in efforts. Second thing will be have a good portfolio, have something to showcase, have something to, you know, portray that yes, this is what I do and I'm good at it. You may not be— you're not required to do every single thing in that domain, it's all right. I think you can rather select a few specifications and you can just be— you can just offer that particular service and just be great at it. Now look at me, I'm not really offering like quite a few things in my portfolio. I don't do weddings as such, I don't do real estate, which are really— these two are really the big, uh, I would say, rich fields in my domain. But I don't do that. I'm trying to create my own place, my own niche. And I think that's what everyone should do. Always start with the beginning, uh, you know, always begin with the end in your mind, they say. Yeah. So you need to know that this is my place and I'm going to go into this shelf. Okay, so have a portfolio like that. So And thirdly, I would say your work ethics. I think work ethics is something which is— which makes a huge difference no matter what you do. You have to stay committed, you have to think for your, uh, whoever is the ultimate client. And I think these two things will take you far, in my opinion.

Wow, that's so precise and concise and succinct to say. Uh, thank you so much. Uh, once again, anyone having any questions, feel free to put it in the comments. Uh, We are coming towards the end because we don't want to make it so boring for people to keep on going. But we do have last 2 questions. One is, you know, we all know about the elephant in the room, uh, the corona, COVID-19, however you wish to say. And we all have been put in, in the lockdown. So how are you keeping yourself positive and motivated? I promise this is the only question I'm going to ask about corona.

Yeah, I think— thank you, thank you for keeping it to the point. I think most, most importantly is in life everything is like that, how you look at it, right? The first— at first glance, if you look at this epidemic, I think it is like a curse. You're not able to go out, you can't do anything, but you just change your perception and You can find that you have more time than ever before, and you can revisit yourself. You can have a pause and revisit your journey, whatever you have done so far and whatever things you could have done better, and start from there. And then begin to draw a chart for yourself, draw a path for yourself where you want to go eventually, 5 years down the line or 10 years down the line, and start working on that. Because this is not like a punishment. This corona break. I think this is more of a camp for you to find your goals, revisit your goals, reshape them. I think that's what it is. So make most of it as much as you can, explore and make most of it. This is what I would say, my take is on it.

Yep, so it's all about perspective that you put it in picture. You think of it as the opportunity, but if you think of it as an Blessing in disguise.

Yeah, it may be.

All right, uh, so now I think I'm gonna move out to a lot of people joining. Hi everyone, uh, I'm gonna move out towards the last probably question, and it's not about question, it's more about, you know, if, uh, when are you doing my photoshoot?

I would say that's easy, that's easy. As soon as you come back from UK, I will not do your photoshoot.

No, if somebody wants to contact you, uh, they want to have their own photo shoot, they want to have, you know, make use of your talent, to say, uh, how can they reach out to you?

And, uh, you can reach out to me via my website, uh, savanchittoraphotography.com, um, or my Insta account as Chittora. I think these are two quick ways to see my work and see if I can be of help to create your vision into reality.

Right. All right. I think that's it. We don't have— the audience is quiet today. So no, we don't have any questions. But yeah, it was great having you. I think it's in this world, even though we are so apart with the help of technology, we can still be connected, we can still do a lot of things. So that has been the theme of my this session. Uh, thank you so much, Saavan, once again, and it was lovely to have you, and I'm looking forward to my photoshoot.

So thank you, thank you so much, Haritosh Srivastav, for having me on your show, and it was pleasure to have, uh, this, this open talk. Uh, I hope it, uh, it was of, uh, few, few, uh, I would say, to, to gents who are were there for our audience to get inspired from. Yeah, thank you.

I'm pretty sure that's, that's very valuable lessons people got it. So yeah, like every time before I end my session, I would like to request to you all to help each other. And when I say help, it's not only about money. There are other ways also that you can help. It could be talking to people, providing them mental support, etc. And also if you can spare some sort of food for the pets, for the stray dogs and cats, etc., because they are also being suffering because of Corona. So that would be good. Let's all keep learning, keep growing, and most importantly, keep growing out of— keep going out of our comfort zone. Thank you so much. This is Haritosh Srivastav signing off. I'll be back next week with another great personality. See you, take care.

Thanks. Thank you.

Thanks, guys. Bye-bye.