If you are in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99% – Warren Buffet
There are many people who have silently taken on the task of thinking beyond themselves and doing all they can to touch the lives of others and make them better. We spoke to one such individual, Gautam Kulkarni who is not only in the 1%, but is also in the minority of the 1% who is trying to bring a smile on other’s faces, not just through his charity organization, the Kara Foundation but also through his photography.
Gautam Kulkarni is a man of many talents which includes running a multi-million dollar charted cost consultancy firm in Dubai which he started when he was only 23 years old. He is also an amazing photographer, traveler, and philanthropist. The title of Robin Sharma’s famous book ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’ comes to mind when talking with Gautam who is lovingly called hobo by his followers on Instagram due to his handle @hobograph. But, Gautam laughingly says he sold his Lamborghini and McLaren and not a Ferrari on his journey to realizing that life is more than just getting rich. It’s in the giving back, he says, that he found his true purpose.
Gautam’s book pictureforapicture is an amazing collection of all his travels and experiences of meeting people in different parts of India, living with tribes in remotest parts of Africa, meeting nomads in Iran, and many other wonderful stories of connecting with people through photography.
How did the concept of pictureforapicture and the book come about?
Pictureforapicture started as a simple idea of giving a photo back instead of just taking one. Many of the people I met on my travels did not have access to phones, emails, or social media. Some did not even possess a single photo print of themselves. A young boy I photographed at the Maha Kumbh Mela asked me what he would get in return for allowing me to photograph him. I didn’t feel the money was the appropriate exchange between us, so I decided to print the photo and give it to him instead. The look on his face at seeing his own photo and the disbelief that I was giving it to him to keep, is etched forever in my memory. Shortly after this, he called all his friends, and soon I was surrounded by people who wanted me to take their photos and give them a print too.
Over time, pictureforapicture allowed me to connect with the people I was photographing and thus began an incredible journey of finding connections in the remotest of places with the most diverse group of people.
Picureforapicture is available on Amazon and Kindle and is published by Notion Press. Gautam’s Instagram handle is #hobograph and his social media is managed by Groundwork.
