Meet Ranjith Kankanala | Professional Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ranjith Kankanala and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ranjith, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
My name is Ranjith Kankanala and I am a full-time professional photographer. I’ve always wanted to do something on my own, build a business and make a career for myself in arts. Photography is something I love and I really enjoy the whole process from brainstorming ideas to post-processing the images. Although I mainly do wedding and fashion photography, I love to photograph anything that I encounter in my daily life. Be it people, landscapes, moments with family/friends. Photography requires me to meet different people and I love hearing their stories and capture moments for them. Each day is same yet so different and it keeps me motivated, inspired to learn and better myself. Even to this day, I learn so much on every shoot I go to. I never had this kind of excitement doing anything else and sometimes I am lost in the art, trying to give best to my clients. I realised this kind of passion/interest is what will keep me happy throughout my life. Starting a photography business, although has many challenges and is pretty competitive, I felt like I could make a career out of it. I started off like any other, taking photographs of friends, working for really small gigs, and once I felt like I could turn this into a business and a full time job, I never looked back. Today, I am a full-time photographer and I enjoy learning the art with each passing day.
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Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
A few years ago, when I first bought a new camera, I asked my friend to teach me how to help me with camera settings and help me with the basics. He shrugged and said “What’s the point if I teach you how I take photographs, you are going to start shooting images exactly like I do. I don’t think you would be any different then”. That was probably the best learning advice someone gave me. And ever since then, I’ve started learning photography on my own. I google, YouTube, look at other photographers work and I try to take in what works best for me.

Since I do this full-time, I am either spending time shooting or editing and this allowed me to keep looking for ways to improve my work. I’ve become so obsessed with capturing moments that I carry my camera everywhere I go. Although I charge for weddings/engagaments on per hourly basis, I am lenient on the time and spend more time on shoots to make sure I deliver good quality photographs for my clients. I am trying to lean more towards candid imagery with an editorial flair photography style and its starting to show in my photographs. I am most proud of how much my work has improved over the last few years. I still have a long way to go but I am happy to see the progress in my work. Every time, I look back at my work from a year ago and I think to myself, what was I thinking then and I think of a hundred other ways to shoot and edit the same photograph. And this to me is a really good sign. A sign of improvement and better servicing my wedding clients. I hope I always feel that way and never stagnate.

I’ve realized early in my career that capturing images might sound relatively easier, especially with the technological innovations in cameras, etc but that it was going to be a long learning curve. I respect and admire all the photographers who have spent so many years pursuing their job capturing weddings, fashion, landscapes etc because it’s not just a simple click on the camera but years of experience with perceiving light, anticipating moments, knowing how to make clients feel their best and any kinds of obstacles that could only come with hard-earned experience. As wedding photographers, we are always put in situations where people expect good photographs no matter the light or the location. Most of the time we only have 5-10 minutes or even less to come up with creative ideas to capture best photographs in weddings or engagement sessions.

Before taking up photography, I graduated with a Masters in Business Administration. This helped me take up business challenges with a little more confidence. My first two years were a bit difficult on my bank, but slowly I’ve started to manage my expenses well and do it more professionally.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
As a photographer, I am incredibly lucky to visit so many places in and around the bay area. Most of the time, its the clients who take me to beautiful spots. I am located in San Jose which is one or two hours away from Beaches, Mountains or the cities. As a part of my job I am driving up to San Francisco atleast twice a week, Santa Cruz, Big Sur maybe once or twice a month and lots of weddings in the wineries. I am obsessed with the Golden Gate Bridge and the City of San Francisco.

If I had a week-long break, I would do a 2 day trip to San Francisco, 1 day in Monterey/Carmel, 1 day in Big Sur, Drive down further south to San Luis Ibispo to check out some wineries there and then Santa Barbara. There are so many beautiful places/viewpoints to see on Highway no 1. All of these are so good to visit most times of the year.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My wife, for supporting me and always encouraging me to keep working despite having so many challenges in running a business. She is also a good critic of my work. When in doubt, I make sure she takes a look at my photographs and lets me know her thoughts. She is always been vocal about what she felt about my photographs and in someway she does influence my art. Her encouragement and support are what keeps me going and without her, I would have never explored in running a photography business. I would also like to give a shoutout to all the other photographers I’ve worked with, from whom I’ve learned quite a bit during my early years.

Website: https://ranjithstudios.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ranjith.studios/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranjithkumarvg/

Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/ranjith-photography-san-jose

Other: My fashion work – https://www.instagram.com/photos.ranjith/

Image Credits
My profile photo credit : Hannah Leigh Photography Instagram: hanleighphoto