Bride, groom and Vivek

Well, Vivek Sequeira is not just the name of an accomplished photographer, he is a brand by himself. With his popularity soaring high, Vivek’s work have been recognised at the various national platforms and awards have fallen into his hands from time to time. Today the tale of Vivek’s popularity has gone to the extent that every young couple waiting to tie the knot wants Vivek to tranform their D-day into a fairy tale through his lens.

After bagging the Kodak Better Photography Wedding Photographer of the Year (WPOY) 2010 contest, Vivek’s enthusiasm and passion for photography has doubled. “I am not a trained photographer,” says Vivek and this humility in an ace photographer could leave eyebrows raised.

Talking about his initial days and the thirst to hold a camera in hand, Vivek recalls, “I used to work in a petrol pump in Mangalore, earning a salary of Rs 1,200 per month. I had dropped out of B.Com, but still I expected to get a clerical job. But I failed. One innate talent I had was drawing and sketching and aesthetics were a part of me. So I was confident to do something relating to art.”

Once during a chat with one of his friends, Vivek spotted some wonderful photos framed on the wall. Initially thinking that those were cut outs of some calender, Vivek enquired his friend about the photos. To his surprise, the photos were clicked by his friend. The spark for photography came from there. “I thought to myself that if an ordinary fellow with no flare for art could click such pictures, why can’t I,” says Vivek.

Then came the most difficult part of the story. Purchasing a camera 15 years ago would have costed a fortune for a petrol bunk employee. Rightly so, at that time an ordinary SLR camera cost about Rs 7,000.

“I had no means but I was determined to have my first camera. Those days, my employer used to deduct Rs 100 from our salary towards security deposit. This amount could be availed by the employees when they leave the job. I took the risk of quitting the job to break the security deposit. I got Rs 5,000 thus and borrowed another Rs 2,000 from a
friend. Thereafter, there has been no looking back,” the arist says.

Wedding pictures

Vivek, though wanted to do fashion photography, lack of scope in the region for the same made him start off with wedding photography. With every wedding picture he clicked, he became a quintessential part of Catholic wedding.

His out of the box thinking, style, creativity and ability to transfrom normal events into lasting memories made him scale greater heights.

When he felt that he was being confined to Catholic weddings, Vivek broke open the confinement and ventured into clicking wedding pictures of various other communities and today he has lots and lots of wedding orders for Hindu weddings, especially the big fat North Indian weddings.

Vivek says that he loves to click wedding pictures because every wedding is different from the other. Vivek does not go to the venue with any fixed ideas. His pictures are spontenous and real.

“I capture emotions and not poses. Planning never works for me,” says Vivek adding that wedding pictures should be more of story-telling than just series of photos.

Likes and dislikes

Vivek likes innovations but for him, too much of photoshop touches is a big ‘NO’. I play with the camera. My usage of photoshop is minimal. I use it for some blur effects and highlighting.

“I realise that with more and more technology coming in clicking a photo has become easy but the essential art in photography is dying,” he laments.

Plans

With two studios in Mangalore and several photographic ventures in the middle east, Vivek’s dream is to have a huge one-stop-photograhic shop in Mangalore. He has already worked on these lines and will open a 5,000 sqft studio in October, in Mangalore. The studio will be dedicated for portraitures and will have world class photograhic equipment for sale.

He has plans to then hold workshop for amateurs and beginners on photography.
Success has not got on to him yet. Rightly he remembers ace photographers like Yajna, Gurudutt Kamath and Mahesh Bhatt for their guidance. Entrepreneur Ronald Colaco is close to his heart for all the support he had lent when Vivek took off as a photographer.
Married to Vinitha Sequeira, Vivek has two daughters-Malaika and Serena and a son named Clint.

With his elder brother Vinay Sequeira, who is the ‘strong pillar of support’ for Vivek, this story teller continues to knit beautiful stories around every marriages that have been made in heaven.