Today we’d like to introduce you to Aniket Patel.
Hi Aniket, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstories with our readers?
I’m from a middle-class Indian family where getting any government job is like getting a dream job and everything after that will be easy & you will get married easily, you will have kids and you will live the rest of your life dedicated to your wife & kids.
And you will continue to do the same job at the same place with the same work until retirement. That’s exactly what I don’t want.
I want to live A LIFE at its fullest in different places with family & friends, discover different countries, spread awareness about wildlife & nature and preserve them, contribute to society as much as possible, all by doing JOB what I like to do. So It all began when I was in 6th or 7th class when I first saw an animal planet show called Austin Stevens: Adventures.
Where Austin Stevens travels the globe with a camera & takes pictures of wildlife and spreads knowledge & awareness about animals. I was already in love with wildlife & nature from childhood but this show made it stronger. Years passed… I passed out from the 10th class & I decided to take a biology stream for my further study. I was passionate about wildlife photography, but it was expensive to chase.
So to become a full-time wildlife photographer I had to do something else to create a backbone for my dream job. So I decided to become a forest officer. Two years passed and I entered college & took up Zoology for further study. And during the first year of college covid 19 happened.
Now for many people covid 19 was miserable & it was for our family too… but for me personally, it changed me from insight. Pandemic gave me more time to think, to discover more opportunities for careers related to wildlife & nature. I came to know that a college degree will not help me to be successful in life.
All I wanted to do was stabilize my family financially, making them completely stress-free and helping wildlife & nature. So I made the big decision to drop out of college (that’s definitely not a way to make my family stress free… anyway moving on) & to do things that I really love to do, to become a self-independent artist.
So… I searched & found multiple income streams related to wildlife & nature that I really love & I can do. Youtube was the thing for me back then (and it’s still for me), I started learning sketching, digital painting, photoshop, photography, and video editing all by watching videos on youtube. I also found many professional independent artists who started from the ground and now are so successful in life. They inspired me a lot & made me more passionate about what I do. I followed them and learned so many great things from them.
Time passed and I started growing from the outside & more from the inside. I learned about myself, mindset, productivity, about youtube, selling artworks, writing, TIME, and many other things too. If you ask me how long it has been since I first started learning all these things then it has been almost 2 years.
First, half-year has passed in deciding what to do & how to do it, and now I’m trying to balance all things so that it goes in a straight line and I know it’s an ideal condition and the train will definitely stop at stations. I’m still not a professional, never will be… I am still learning many new things every week.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
If there are no obstacles\challenges you face during chasing your dream then you are not growing. One of the biggest obstacles or you can say the challenge I faced was dropping out of college. What will my parents think, and what will our surrounding people say.
Luckily, I have one older brother who manages many things in the family & my dad & mom are superheroes. My family is very supportive and didn’t say anything to me about the decision that I made. Photography & traveling, especially wildlife photography is expensive jobs or hobbies. So I looked for something that is inexpensive and I can still enjoy and it doesn’t require many things to have and it generates enough income that can support me in every expectation of life.
Another obstacle or you can say struggling with is balancing my work life, health & family time. Doing all the things by yourself is difficult but that is life I guess. If you see my everyday graph then it’s up & down. But if you see a month or year graph then it’s constantly going up. Another struggle that I’m still facing is connecting with people and getting out of my comfort zone.
I’m an introvert & I’m very proud of that. But what I’m doing, what I will do & what changes I want to make requires going into a world full of people, talking to them, interacting with them, explaining things to them and it requires me to be a little extrovert. If you are an introvert then you definitely know what I’m talking about and how I feel.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I don’t know what can I say lucky or maybe I have done many good things in my past life, but when I was in 8th class I got selected by one NGO named NJCT through one exam.
In which I passed (you can know about them here: (https://njtrust.org/njctdesk/index.html) where I was going for tuition for my studies and they have helped me in many things whether it’s a taking a 1-year nature photography course (when I was in 12th class) or taking admission in English school, they taught me, guided me, mentored me and now I worked for them as a video editor (since I passed out from 12th class).
It’s kind of full-time, but it’s actually a side hustle. I had to do something that helps me a bit financially to support me & my family. It’s a side hustle because I gave as much time as possible to my passion, which is becoming an Independent artist who does Wildlife Photography, Digital Painting, Sketching, Photo manipulations surrounding Wildlife/nature, or whatever inspired me.
Most of my work is from a fantasy world when I do photo manipulation. For digital painting & sketching, I go toward making it cartoon style but in a realistic way, a mix of both worlds. I also have two separate YouTube channels for Photo Manipulation and Digital Painting and there will be also for photography too. I also sell my artwork through print on demand sites and also do freelancing.
And there are other things that I’m exploring like the Stock Market, NFT arts, and things(that include traveling, documentaries, short animation films, wildlife products that give back to wildlife, contributing to wildlife NGOs, making courses on what I know, and some other things too) that I will do in future for sure. (my link tree:- https://linktr.ee/Aniket_Patel).
What am I most proud of? Hmm… There are many things but one thing that I am most proud of is that I do wildlife photography because of it I am so connected with mother earth and its amazing creatures. If you leave me alone in the woods then I can spend the whole day watching animals-birds, observing them, photographing them and spending a really good time in the forest.
How do you define success?
For me, success is when you get back up again & again whenever life hits you when you change someone through your work when you inspire even a single person through your work.
Pricing:
- For Digital Paintings starting price:- $5
- For Photo Edit starting price:- $5
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/visualsofaniket/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VisualsOfAniket
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/VisualsOfAniket
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AniketPatelPS
- Other: https://linktr.ee/Aniket_Patel
