Blog

This journey starts from a city in India called Chennai where life is much different to life in the Western world. This is a story of a one man’s passion, love, and determination for photography. L Ramachandran is from India has had a long time dream to be able to photograph glamour/Playboy style photography. To bring some perspective, the Western style of photography is like forbidden fruit in many areas of India. The Kama-Sutra did not appeal to the locals as it did for the rest of the world. In most parts of India sexuality is taboo and against their religious believes. Not only has L Ramahandran had to battle the social norms of his homeland but he’s had to struggle even getting lighting equipment that is out of reach to local photographers due to its price and availability.

When you do find a good deal, it’s at least three times more expensive in India for the local photographer based on salaries that don’t even scratch the surface of an amateur photographer in U.S. Not to mention the Hindu religion and the beliefs of the local population which had made L Ramachandran feel that his Western style glamour photography career was doomed.

L Ramachandran discovered Shoot The Centerfold’s website with the result of a Google search for Jarmo Pohjaniemi/Playboy photographers. There he found he could purchase lighting and posing tutorial books. The only setback for L Ramachandran was that the books are not available in India and with that, he was not any closer to fulfilling his lifelong dream.

As Shoot The Centerfold was planning a trip to Santorini, Greece last year, we announced that we would choose a few lucky photographers based on their photo submissions who would join us to a photo trip of a lifetime. L Ramachandran was one of the photographers who joined us for our 14 day long photography journey that changed his beliefs and vision as far as who he wanted to become.

Now that L Ramachandran’s longtime dream had seen its first baby steps, his thirst was intensified and he wanted much more. He purchased a one day seminar ticket to join us at our STC Los Angeles seminar. This was clearly a very long way from the dusty overcrowded roads of Chennai, India to come for a one day seminar. We even tried to convince L Ramachandran to wait for the bigger two day event that was planned for a later time so he could maximize his time and justify the long distance travel and the costs involved. There was no stopping L Ramachandran who found himself in the outskirts of Los Angeles with his camera in one hand and his future in the other.

During conversations with STC crew and longtime photography director Gary Cole, he commented,

If each photographer would have even 20% of willpower that L Ramachandran has, there would be many more better photographers … period.”

Language barriers can be a challenge for many. There are few countries in the world where you will mostly get a “Yes” when you ask anything! India happens to be one of them. It’s a part of their upbringing to be polite and we saw lots of “Yes” answers from L Ramachandran even when he hadn’t the slightest idea what the question was. People in India also shake their head the same way as we would be saying “No” which means actually ”Yes” for them and this can be totally confusing when carrying on a discussion. Imagine yourself asking, “How did you sleep last night?” and getting the answer, “Yes, very good thank you” and at the same time he shakes his head as we would be when saying, “No”.

Indian head-shake explained

After numerous “Yes” and “No” combinations, somehow we all were able to understand each other since we all speak the same universal language called “Photography.” And when you master this, everybody in the world will listen to you.

We hope that Mr. L Ramachandran and his photographic journey is an inspiration for those who seek to learn and improve their skills regardless of their goals. One of the key messages in this story is:

No distance should ever come between an individual and his dream.”

We applaud and support L Ramachandran’s photographic endeavors, and leave you to admire his first Western published work in an International Playboy issue on newsstands right now!

Full page ad in Playboy Intl. by LRamachandran – Model Zienna Eve

© 2014 Copyright ShootTheCenterfold.com. All rights reserved.