Meet Praveen Prem Kumar Pai. This youngster is from Kerala, having studied in Dubai before coming to Bengaluru to “fulfil his dreams.” Why not Mumbai? The city of dreams? “That is because my family wanted me to be close to them. I have relatives here and I came to study animation and cinematography.”
Praveen’s passion for photography started when he was in class eight. “I was gifted an MP4 and that’s how the journey began,” he recalls. “I did not know that there were professional cameras when I was that young. I gradually became the family photographer. I realised that there was something different in the way I took pictures. They seemed to come alive and speak volumes,” he smiles.
When he was 16, Praveen was gifted a digital camera. “That was my first experience with a real camera, which became my instrument to capture memories through my travel and life.” He adds that he has every picture he took, ever since. “My family observed that there was something in my images. I could show various human emotions using flowers, colours or even black and white images,” says Praveen, who is presently doing his B.Sc Animation in Bengaluru. “I started off as a computer science student. But everything I studied went over my head. Then with great difficulty I managed to convince my parents that cinematography is my dream. They agreed,” adds the photographer.
“It was then that I met short film maker Vinod Rajendra and we started making short films together. It was with him that I started acting and later also did cinematography. I soon became a topper in my class when it came to animation and photography. And now I am one of the core members of AARVI productions, a short film production house that has won a couple of awards in international short film fests.”
Praveen, who dreams of becoming a cinematographer in the Malayalam film industry and plans to take off to Hollywood, says that he loves taking pictures of tiny creatures like an ant or a beetle. “They seem so insignificant but you need a lot of patience to capture them. I feel that I can capture varied human emotions through these tiny creatures,” says Praveen, who has exhibited his works in national photography exhibitions across the country.
He is also listed among top 20 best photographers of the world for the year 2012/13/14 in the online web gallery Pixoto. “Patience is the only key to success. As of now it’s really important for any photographer to have patience in order to achieve their desired frame. I usually wait for hours to capture the best in my lens. My passion is all about love and pure desire against what you need to achieve.”
For more on Praveen log on to >facebook.com/clickNframe , >pixoto.com/prvnsnaps
