A phonetastic perspective

Photographer Aquin Mathews, director of the Indian Photography Festival in Hyderabad, speaks to us about using phone cameras to capture images and about why gears don’t matter to him.

Aquin Mathews is a commercial photographer who works in India and Australia, who believes photography has the power to change the world as an image can have a profound effect on the human mind, motivating them to making the world a better place. Having said, it is indeed all about the capture for Aquin, not the camera used for the capture.

“It’s what you do with a camera that really matters. I shot a series of images using a mobile phone camera during my travels, hoping to make a point that a gear doesn’t matter as much as your eye, heart and mind,”says Aquin, the founder director of the Indian Photography Festival, an annual affair in the city. The last edition happened in Hyderabad October 2019.

Incidentally, Aquin had founded the Indian Photography Festival hoping to create a platform for engaging emerging Indian photography talents by offering photography grants, workshops, portfolio reviews, talks and seminars.

Photographic memories
As a child, while fiddling with his dad’s camera, Aquin grew curious about the equipment and how images were taken, sparking his interest in photography. “I appreciate beauty around me and feel like sharing those visuals with others,” says Aquin, who’s been clicking pictures since he was a teenager.

While Aquin does use different brands and types of cameras for his commercial shoots, he isn’t a big fan of high-end equipment. Neither does he believe that one needs high-end cameras to produce great images. “For me, the camera, or the medium to capture an image, is just an extension of my eyes because it’s all about one’s vision and how one captures an image. Especially off late,while travelling, I’ve been mostly shooting using my mobile phone,”adds Aquin, saying observation and focus are what matter most. The passionate photographer, however, was previously working at a desk job. “After several years of that job,with my creativity overflowing, I reached a saturation point. So I decided to push my passion for photography into a full-time job. And no kidding, ever since, it’s actually been as that Mark Twain saying goes: ‘Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life’,” says Aquin, signing off.