It’s amazing how powerful portraits are and well shot portraits can take the viewer on a journey of different emotions. Most people that appear to be meaningful, always have a meaning. Often, shooting portraits that tell a story can be used to give insight about the person, as well as memorialize a person to a certain place and time..
When it comes to portraits that tell a story, Kay Sukumar has built a reputation which has stood the test of time in different countries including the United Kingdom, Australia, France and India. Sometimes, portraits that we cherish the most, gets better with time. The significance of a portrait may vary with time. A well shot portrait will always have a story to tell and stand the test of time.
Recently, Kay Sukumar shot Bollywood celebrity Janhvi Kapoor for the cover of Grazia magazine. This April 2020 cover will go down in history as one of the most iconic images of actress Janhvi Kapoor as she sits quietly smiling under a tree on a wooden chair showing us a cheeky, relaxed and easy going side to her when she is not busy shooting films.
Kay Sukumar Says, “One of my main objectives in my profession is to make my subject appear better than they are in real life. However, I will ensure that this is done, but more importantly keeping it true to the subjects identity” Since most traits are always for this reason, one would want to connect with others through creating meaningful portraits. To do this effectively, it would require for the photographer to build trust with there subjects and this is a very signature quality of Kay Sukumar.
While shooting portraits, kay has a very open discussion with his subjects and educates them about what he is doing every step of the way. Its one of the ways he puts his subjects at ease and have them open up to him organically. Some of the most iconic portraits kay Sukumar has shot are in galleries around the world and seen daily in top global fashion magazines.
While shooting Portraits, Kay Sukumarprefers a clean background or a non-distracting background as it doesn’t take away from the subject. The idea of a portrait is to tell a story or emotion through the subject and usually most of his portraits focus on the subject’s face and to be precise their eyes. Kay loves his subjects looking straight into the camera so he can engage with them and bring out a certain emotion or in most cases test the waters to see where the subject lets him take it.
Constantly interacting, creating a mood in the studio/location with the help of lighting, music and building an environment of trust is how Kay Sukumar gets his subjects to let there guard down and ease into the moment. A very signature technique of Kay, when required is also doing half portraits, By only showing half of the portrait stimulates the viewer’s mind and pursues the mind to delve into the image. Doing this effectively allows the viewer’s mind to complete the missing part of the portrait. This concept had been derived from ancient times.
We are very excited to follow Kay Sukumar in this journey of self growth and self expression and hopefully have him create more iconic images for us to enjoy forever.
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