Twitter Interview With Seshu

Twitter Interviews – #CKinterview

Today’s Cross-Cultural Interview is with Seshu.  Seshu is a professional photographer specialized in multicultural wedding photography. You can also find him on Twitter: @PicSeshu.

This interview is in 2 parts:

• Part 1 – The Blog Interview to get to know Seshu
• Part 2 – The Twitter Interview where Seshu answers the 10 Cross-Cultural & International Questions

Part 1 – The Blog Interview With Seshu

Here is the first part of the interview with Seshu – The transcript of the Twitter Interview is below. You can find the interview on Twitter with the hashtag #CKinterview.

Cindy King: Hi Seshu, I am really fascinated about how you use your cross-cultural expertise to create a unique niche in your profession. For those who don’t know you, can you please tell us something about yourself?

Seshu: Where do I come from has always been a difficult question to answer. I was born in New York. My parents decided in 1970 to return to the home of their birth, India, and so starting from age two to 13, I lived in Chennai. Going to school there meant learning Hindi. We spoke English, Tamil and Kannada at home. In 1983, my parents and I decided that it would be best if I returned to the US and so I stayed with friends of the family in Massachusetts and attended high school there before completing it in San Jose, California. After high school, I moved up to study at California State University, Chico, located north of Sacramento. Those were some of my most memorable years. I started out majoring in Business, but soon found myself enthralled in History and a new language, Japanese. I decided to study abroad, in Tokyo for a couple of years as I had been accepted into a graduate program at UC Santa Barbara, to study Modern Japanese History. But living in Japan, in fact staying with a Japanese family and interacting with people on a daily basis convinced me that I needed to pursue journalism upon my return to the US. I was accepted to Indiana University’s Ernie Pyle School of Journalism and lived in Bloomington, Indiana for a couple of years. Back in Japan, I had been gifted a camera by my parents who were visiting me. At IU, I found myself gravitating to the darkrooms and taking on more and more visual communications courses.

I stumbled across a poster for the Salt Center for Documentary Studies, a three-month program in Portland, Maine. I felt that an immersive experience learning visual anthropology was what I really wanted to do. So, I lived in Maine for several months. I noticed that MSNBC.com was looking for an intern and instead of mailing them an application, I invited myself to their headquarters in Redmond, Washington, for an interview. I got the internship and found myself living in Washington state, again a very positive experience. When the internship ended, I began work at Corbis, a stock photo agency, as a photo researcher. I found myself on the East coast again, in Boston, where I worked as a freelance photographer for newspapers and international magazines. When the 9/11 tragedy struck, editorial markets suddenly dried up. I remember this being a really tough time for me, but thankfully I had strong family support. My cousins in Boston provided me with a roof over my head and for that I’ll always be grateful. At the end of 2002, I met my wife and because she was still in school in Connecticut, I decided to move down to Hartford. Looking online, I saw ESPN.com was looking for a photo editor and so I applied thinking it will be a very long shot. My sports knowledge was pretty non-existent back then. But a strong portfolio, a solid background in photography, photo research and of course working at some of the top online companies, helped me get my foot in the door. After five years at ESPN, I decided to strike out on my own and started a documentary wedding and portrait photography business – Seshu Photography.

Cindy King: What you do in life and how are your cross-cultural skills related to your profession?

Seshu: I have really enjoyed traveling and meeting people from all walks of life. I have lived in India, the US and Japan. I’ve also spent a Summer working in London for a brokerage that sold Icelandic fish-heads to Nigerians. Yum!

The weddings I photograph are mostly multicultural. I more easily understand my client’s needs based on not only who they are, but who I am and what my experiences have been. As a part of the Indian diaspora that has made its home around the word, I feel very comfortable working with a wide variety of people. I think my mindset would have been different if I had stayed back in India.

What sets me apart are the opportunities I have had, to work in a variety of situations and with a diverse group of people. While most of my business is in Connecticut or New England, having an international presence is a natural progression. Last October, I had the honor of photographing a beautiful Indian wedding in Rajasthan, India. It was at the outskirts of Udaipur, at Devi Garh, a 18th century Rajput fort-palace that has been converted into a luxury hotel.

Cindy King: How did you pick up your cross-cultural skills?

Seshu: I am not sure if I consciously picked any of my cross-cultural skills. My language skills were bolstered thanks in large part to living in India, where one need only to cross the state’s border to experience another culture. I chose to study Japanese and live with a host family because that remains the best way to immerse yourself into a culture and solve problems; language or gastronomic. And in the US, call it a melting pot or a salad bowl, I am constantly in touch with multiple cultures.

Cindy King: Can you give us some insights into your cross-cultural affinities?

Seshu: As far as languages go, I would love to relearn Japanese. At one point during my stay in Japan, I was able to carry on a conversation in Japanese on the phone so convincingly that the caller thought I was Japanese!

While I am based in Connecticut, I do aspire to photograph multicultural or strictly Indian weddings in Hong Kong, Dubai, Antwerp, Delhi and Mumbai.

I am fond of Mira Nair’s movies – Mississippi Masala and The Namesake. They both tackle cultural conflicts and resolutions in a very interesting way. The main characters of both the movies are thrown into a cultural milieux that is somewhat alien not to them but their parents. So, there is this conflict between them and the parents and the questions that arise about who they are in the society that has adopted them.

Cindy King: Have you noticed any current cross-cultural trends either online or offline?

Seshu: I am seeing a great many more multicultural weddings taking place. The uptick is natural as more couples are finding each other online, through networking opportunities at work or through close friends. Rare is the couple who declare that their parents or relatives set them up. People are connecting using alternative means. And that usually suggests that there is more openness in the process.

Couples who are most likely to hire my services are well-educated, definitely well traveled, sophisticated in their outlook of life and society, tend to be progressive about their politics and involved in social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, to connect with their family, friends or colleagues. So it does make sense for me to also have a presence in these channels. Being active online gives me the opportunity to cast a wider but also more focused net. I really enjoy creating and sharing slideshows online. I am of the belief that the more I show, the more a prospective client will know about my work and me. Indeed, a photographer’s personality and portfolio are two very important distinctions that make her or him unique.

Part 2 – The Twitter Interview With Seshu

This is an interview series of the people I recommend you follow on Twitter for the cross-cultural and international business insights in their tweets.

More Twitter Interviews

• Charmayne Paul – @psitutor
• Lucy Chatburn – @pocketcultures
• Doreen Iannuzzi – @DoreenatDMS
• Donna Jackson – @wisequeen
• Chris Cotter – @CotterHUE
• Jack Yan – @jackyan
• Silvia Cambié – @XCulture
• Bill Ward – @DR4WARD
• Thierry De Baillon – @t_de_baillon
• Neil Urquhart – @culturematters
• Klaus & Flavia Westerwelle – @transdomo
• Donagh Kiernan – @dkiernan
• Christian Hoeferle – @hoeferleconsult
• Caroline – @ohh_la_la
• Deborah Swallow – @DeborahSwallow
• Steve Roesler – @steveroesler
• Matthew Bennett – @matthewbennett

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