We had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Naroop of @amitandnaroop. Amit and Naroop are advertising, portrait and celebrity photographers from London.

Amit and Naroop have achieved a great deal in a very short time. In the first stage of their career they took the world of urban music by storm. They are the photographers (and often video directors) of choice for many of the genre’s biggest stars and their client list includes @officialWretch32, @Tiniegram, @TinchyStryder and @AlexandraBurke.

Now that they have broadened their horizons, they are still passionate about music but their work has expanded to embrace advertising and publishing (they are official photographers of @guardian @shortlistmagazine), as well as actors, comedians and sportsmen, all interpreted with their characteristic passion and intense visual style.

Their personal work also includes being the authors of the book #TurbansandTales, creative directors and photographers of ‘Singh’ - a series of portraits of Sikh men that celebrate the Sikh look of turban and beard and the list goes on.

https://www.amitandnaroop.com/

Buy the book Turbans and Tales! - https://amzn.to/2HQip1s

Show Notes

5 mins

- Early life and School

- Visiting the national portrait gallery, 

- Dad losing millions and becoming a cab driver

- Demonstrating humility, lessons learned

- His brother Jay Sean and him being supported by parents & family

- Cousins parents invested to start their company

- Receiving feedback, being nice to work with

- Maintaining and building relationships

- ‘Before you build your business, build you’

- Being nice, confident

- Doing public speaking to get over the fear of running a set

25 mins

- Starting a shoot with Amit ‘shall we just do this together?

- moving into studio

- getting into film

- Directing music videos Tinchy Stryder, Taio Cruz, Ms Dynamite

- Diving in and getting stuck in

33 mins

- getting more lighting

- building studio

38 mins

- Burning your boats

- Feeling the pressure to make your dreams come true

"Its amazing what you can achieve when you don’t care who gets the credit"

40 mins

- https://www.amazon.co.uk/Spike-What-are-You-Great/dp/1911498525

- Working with Amit

- Going through tough times and come through the other end

43

- Talking about their work, bold, bright, vivid

- your work and your style has to feel natural to you, if it doesn't, don’t do it

46

- Your approach and how you work

- The industry needs your approach

- Don't expect the make up artist to go the extra mile if you don’t make people feel appreciated

- Always make everyone feel good

48

- Shortlist

- Shooting Ricky Gervais

53

- The Sikh project

- Ad agencies don’t look at what you have been commissioned. You need to do personal work

- How can we display our culture in a clever way?

- Why are people growing these beards? Sikh men have been doing this for 100s of years

- lets shoot these men in our studios

- Facebook page exploded!

- BBC world news, photos of sikh men

58

- Getting crowdfunded by the community

- Raising £12k after a Huffpost feature

1hr

- Wanted to stand out with our name

- Being bold and being brave

1hr 2

- Winners are the people that lose the most

- jar full of change, scraping together the money

- Keeping a positive demeanour

- Losing 60-70's on abstract art

- No means “New Opportunity”

1hr 6

- You have to pay the cost

1hr 8

- Work on you, make sure you’re where you need to be mentally

- Liquid gold needs to be in a cast needs to be made so when the success comes we can deal with it. You \

- Be a nice person, do the hard work in private

- Talent is important but hard work trumps talent, put in the hours. 

- Commit to your craft, practice, be resourceful

- Find yourself a mentor, someone who is where you want to be in 5 years. Take them for coffee/lunch and get advice. Ask questions

- Build up a network of people that you can bounce ideas off

1hr 12

- How to get a mentor

1hr 14

- How to ensure you have a good partnership

- Make sure your visions are aligned

- Communicate

- Don’t step on each others roles

- Write down your own strengths and put them next to each other

- Be nice 

- Is it true, is it necessary, is it kind?

1hr 17

- Don't rely on anyone

- Build and nurture relationships

- Give Give Give and your rewards will come

- Be more kind

1hr 20

- Turban tales book about the sikh project

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