Passion is the greatest driving force that pushes mortals to make that extra inch of effort to achieve their dreams. You are bound to end up doing what you intensely desire to do, no matter what. But there’s just one condition: you must take the first step! Someone has rightly said – “A dream becomes the goal when action is taken toward its achievement.”

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the extremely gifted photographer, Harvarinder Singh, from Ludhiana (he already has around 5000 fans on Facebook!). He always had a crystal clear vision that photography was the only thing he wanted to do in life. This made him refuse a well-paid job with a leading IT company. In fact, Harvarinder told the interview panel that he did not want to get into a job and wanted to pursue photography instead. Does that remind you of 3 Idiots?

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Like most boys his age, Harvarinder got himself enrolled in an engineering college upon his father’s insistence. While completing his degree, he got fascinated with Photoshop and developed a great interest in editing pictures. He even started putting up his pictures on the social networking site Orkut. Little did Harvarinder know that work would start pouring in so soon. He got his first professional editing assignment through the site for which he was paid 30 thousand rupees. But his actual bent towards photography began when he was doing his technical training in Chandigarh for his last semester. That was the time when he started dipping his heart and mind into photography.

The first professional camera Harvarinder bought was a second-hand SLR. Currently he possesses a Canon 5D MARK II, for which he let forgo a brand new Maruti Swift (promised by his parents as a gift, if he completed his degree). But he isn’t too choosy about his equipment – “It’s the vision that makes a good picture and not a good camera.” You won’t believe but all his popular pictures have been captured on Point-and-Shoot cameras.

Harvarinder has done many assignments on varied subjects, but his forte is nature – he loves clicking pictures of the beauty bestowed upon us by the Almighty. Some of his shots of the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana were so gorgeous that one of the professors called him up from USA to actually tell him that he had been in the university for 40 years but never seen that place.

On being asked what is the toughest to shoot, Harvarinder quipped – “Without doubt, it’s the babies.” They give expressions at their own whim, so photographers have to patiently wait for the perfect moment when they can click. The photographer par excellence also feels that shooting at weddings is physically most exhausting. This is because you don’t get a retake in a wedding.

Harvarinder started out with editing images and is still a big fan of Photoshop. But he feels that the photographer should not go overboard while using this editing technique. He says – “There are some pictures whose beauty wouldn’t be same if too much Photoshop-ed.”

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On being asked about his inspiration, the man who has a magical hold on the camera told us that there are hordes of photographer across the globe who gives fuel to the fire burning within him. Jatin Kampani from Mumbai is someone whose work he really loves and appreciates. It’s not only the photographers that he follows – Harvarinder admires anything that is artistic. A big music lover, he says he would have been a music composer or a DJ had he not been a photographer. He even went to a DJ training institute in Delhi but since the fee was too much, his parents called him back.

Talking about the photography scenario in India, the talented guy feels that photographers are not given their due in India. The celebrities don’t treat them well here. Moreover, the photographers here are much more occupied with so many other things that the kind of freedom possessed by photographers abroad is not possible in our country. We also asked about his take on the ‘wannabe’ photographers who don’t do quality work at all.

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So what are his future plans? For starters, Harvarinder tells us that his appointment diary is choc-a-bloc with photography assignments till July next year. He is also going to Canada in 2012 for a wedding photoshoot. Next, he plans to do a special photoshoot which has ‘trees’ as its theme. He believes a photographer can’t click any picture more than once. It’s once in a lifetime kind of thing. He also wants to have his own photo studio. Another dream that lies hidden in some corner of his heart, is to develop a music studio. His next interesting photoshoot idea involves paint and woofers. Creative… isn’t it?

On a humourous note, Harvarinder feels people should stop tagging him on each and every picture on Facebook!