The secret life of a photographer: free online content is putting us out of work

In the 10 years I have spent working as a photographer for men’s lifestyle magazines, I have often felt like a traitor, trading in bums and boobs: images that perpetuate an unproductive and even dangerous archetype of what makes women desirable. But with the recent decline in commercial print publishing, particularly of lads’ mags, it has become imperative to evolve in order to stay relevant.

Recently, crossing over into women’s lifestyle publishing (where the boobs and bums may be more petite, skin plentiful and the interviews are often even more cringeworthy), I have realised the grass is not any greener on the other side. A lingerie shoot in a female publication only really varies from one aimed at a male audience by its inclusion of styling credits, and a lower model BMI.

In fact this is perhaps an even more toxic cultural wasteland, with its severe retouching standards and consumerist ideals. Are the professionally empowered and educated inadvertently conspiring behind the scenes to keep the others daft and naive? How did we end up this way?

To say that I am torn between the ethical issues and doing the ultimate dream job – flexibility included – would be an understatement. For the majority of the work, which is in retouching, I keep my own hours. The work can be done from a home studio in my pyjamas – that’s how centrefolds are “made”.

Retouching is brutal work. The process routinely involves liquefying body contours, grafting skin, augmenting and trimming body silhouettes, transplanting hair, shaving noses and fixing bad makeup. We know about the real state of models’ cellulite and hair-removal habits. If a nipple shows through sheer fabric (or the model is cold) in a shoot for non-nude publications, we recreate lace fabrics, shadows and hair over the area to ensure that they pass editorial standards. In the case of a nude publication, papillae and ducts within the nipple itself must be removed in order to create a Barbie-smooth look. European titles tend to be more forgiving in both respects, but the butchery I have had to commit for American and Australian magazines has been unforgivable.

Aside from tolerating a few challenging personalities throughout the years, such as the neurotic makeup artist who hijacked a shoot or the difficult art director who decided all the furniture had to be retouched out of images, working as a photographer has been nothing but a pleasure. The technical challenges are exciting and rewarding, deadlines are bearable and the ability to say, “Hey, Mum, I just got a shoot in …” is gratifying. Although the glamour of any profession lies in the public’s thankfully uninformed perception, working with beautiful people is hardly a terrible way to spend one’s day.

In fact, the main perk is the people. Models themselves are often vastly intelligent and interesting to speak with behind the scenes. We know exactly what product we are making, and we do it so well that the consumer genuinely believes it is real.

Once, during a casting, I was going through a model’s professional website, which included interview clips of her exclaiming – with no hint of irony, and well placed pauses – that she had never read a book in full. I dreaded the shoot for weeks, until we were involved directly in an email exchange, in which she was attentive and very articulate. On set, she was probably the most professional person I have ever worked with, and I do not say that lightly.

The industry feeds with one hand, on an individual level, and then takes away with the other, from the masses, by means of unhealthy cultural programming and behavioural normalisation.

It has been interesting to see how social media has changed the way people view images. Mainstream reporting of important commercial events, such as a Kim Kardashian nude shoot, now generate interest not from the lads’ mag crowd, but also from a very vocal audience of vastly heterosexual females, who now more than ever are able to look up to or deconstruct these ideals.

But as content is increasingly available online, its value is reduced. This new generation of free-content producers is quite literally putting us out of business – and at the same time it lacks the legal protections and controlled distribution afforded to professional models and photographers.

Fellow dinosaurs from the print world still do not quite know what to make of this and how to work with it. Many of us have found ourselves fleeing to other vocations in search of a stable pay cheque to make rent day, a mere 10 years after the glory days of print, when one double-page spread would cover a photographer’s basic financial needs for a month.

I am currently stuck in a strangely privileged place – disillusioned and bitter, yet enjoying being one of the survivors. I manage to keep production costs down and have dramatically increased my work output to cope and adapt.

Delivery mechanisms for images are changing. In the early 2000s it was film v digital, in the 2010s pirate v purchased, and in 2016 pro v amateur. As Playboy publishes images of Instagram girls, it’s all still the same … but yet so very different.

• Are you a lawyer, a lorry driver, a PR? We want to hear your candid accounts of what work is really like. Find full details on submitting your story anonymously here

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We got eight Indian startup CEOs to tell us their one killer interview question for new hires

From business plans to work culture, Indian startups have done most things differently from traditional companies.

Even when it comes to building teams, most entrepreneurs are now looking beyond conventional qualities such as qualification, experience, or success at previous jobs.

Like their unusual job titles and offbeat workplaces, these entrepreneurs’ interviews of prospective employees are different too—no more “where do you see yourself in 10 years?” or “what is your biggest weakness?”

Instead, they ask about petrol consumption, losing debates, and horoscopes.

“When do you give up on a teammate?”

For Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO and founder of mobile wallets startup Paytm, a candidate’s decision-making skill is key.

His most important question to an interviewee is: When do you know it’s time you give up on a teammate and ask him to leave? And how do you reach that decision? Sharma believes this is one of the hardest things to decide on in a startup and asking this question helps him understand a candidate’s “journey towards taking tough decisions.”

“Why are you talking to us today?”

Richa Kar, founder and CEO of online lingerie retail startup Zivame, thinks it is necessary to understand a prospective employee’s reason for wanting to work at her company.

“I think it is very important to judge a person’s motivation for wanting to work with us. This question does just that,” Kar said. “When you are creating a market, you want people who are as excited as you in the entire process of creation. That way, everyone co-owns your vision for the company.”

“Do you believe in destiny or free will?”

It is essential that employees realise they are responsible for their actions, says Paras Chopra, founder and CEO of Wingify, a Delhi-based enterprise software startup. So, a question he asks in several interviews is: “Do you believe in horoscopes?” He follows this up with: “Do you think we have free will?”

“We are looking for individuals who have a strong internal locus of control and believe that the end result is a cause of their own actions,” explained Chopra, who has opted to keep his seven-year-old startup bootstrapped despite the funding boom in India.

“We believe such people display a higher sense of responsibility and judiciousness when taking important business decisions, compared to those who believe overtly in external factors like luck or competition affecting their performance,” he added.

“Sell me the water bottle”

Asking a candidate to sell a bottle, a glass, or a pen is one of the oldest tricks during interviews for sales-related roles. “It helps me test their level of empathy,” said Rajiv Srivatsa, co-founder and COO of online furniture retail startup Urban Ladder.

The answer to this question highlights a candidate’s “creativity, presence of mind, and most importantly the ability to understand the customer.”

“How much petrol gets consumed on the road outside our office?”

Nishant Singh, CEO and founder of customer relationship management startup CRMnext, likes to throw up a brain-teaser during interviews. The intention is to understand how a candidate deals with such questions, rather than to get an accurate answer.

One question that Singh has often asked during interviews is: how would you estimate the petrol consumed on the road outside our office between 8pm and 9pm every evening, without any help?

“See, if you strip away domain and technology knowledge, you are left with attitude and problem-solving capabilities in a person. Skills can be tough, but these natural instincts are what makes a winner,” the CEO of the Norwest Venture Partners-backed company said.

“Many people don’t even try to answer and just give up, and that says a lot about them,” he added.

“Tell me about the time when you failed.”

Until not so long ago, Amit Jain, co-founder and CEO of CarDekho, an automobile classified portal, focused more on a person’s qualifications and past work experience during interviews. But as his company grew in size, it became essential to hire people who would maintain the culture and ethos of his company. “When we were a 100-people team, I could personally keep a check on the culture. But now as we grow, I need people who speak the same language as mine because I cannot keep 3,000 people on the same page culturally.”

So, while interviewing candidates nowadays, Jain asks them about their failures.

“The moment a candidate starts talking to me about his or her failure, I get an understanding of how humble or pompous he or she is,” Jain said. “A person’s past success or failure is of little importance to me. But what I want to know is if the candidate is humble enough to realise what went wrong and accept it.”

CarDekho currently employs at least 25 entrepreneurs who failed in their ventures, Jain added.

“When was the last time you were wrong during a debate?”

Bipin Preet Singh, CEO of mobile wallet startup MobiKwik, tries to find out if the prospective employee is comfortable with accepting when he or she is wrong. His favourite question: when was the last time that, in the middle of a debate, you realised you were wrong, and promptly admitted it?

“It’s very difficult to come up with a diplomatic answer when the candidate is not expecting this question,” Singh said. “The answer gives me an insight into how open-minded the person is, his or her ability to accommodate others’ viewpoints, and whether the person is humble enough to give credit where it’s due.”

“Explain crowdfunding to me like I’m a six-year-old.”

Crowdfunding is relatively new to India. So when Varun Sheth, co-founder and CEO of crowdfunding platform Ketto, is hiring a new employee, he tries to understand what the candidate knows about the sector.

“Explain crowdfunding to me like I am a six-year-old,” Sheth often asks. It helps him judge a prospective employee’s communication skills and understanding of the job.

The question may seem easy, but not many find it easy to answer. “Answering this question is far more difficult than it seems,” Sheth said. “Explaining a concept like crowdfunding to a six-year-old is a tough job. So answering this question shows the candidate’s understanding of the concept and also his or her ability to think out of the box.”

Another question Sheth often asks is this: if you had to do a job without a salary what job would that be?

“This typically takes people by surprise because they come prepared for technical questions,” he explained. “The answer to this question reveals more about the real person behind the prospective employee.”

We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

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