ImagesBazaar.com is a websites which is collection of Indian images and pictures.
Sandeep Maheshwari started his career as a model, right after his schooling, at the age of 19. But he was not competent enough to make his mark as there were countless number of people who aspired to create their own space in the field. He pondered why he shouldn’t help those aspiring models who seek a genuine photographer rather than being a model. Only on a blue moon one can find a photographer who put the problems of a model above his monetary desires on the same timeline. That urged him to become a photographer and to be the solution for those aspiring models’ clicking needs.
After undergoing a photography workshop training spanning two weeks, he set up his own studio, Mash Audio Visual, on a small scale owing to the economic condition of his family. He started creating portfolios, though not very appealing as he was not a professional photographer compared to the veterans in the field.
He was multitasking as a counselor, tele-caller and a photographer as well. He did portfolios on weekends and he planned to play the rest of the roles on weekdays. Being a fast footer, he managed 5 to 6 portfolios in a day. He wondered if he could manage in case the demand increased to higher levels. Suddenly the idea to set a world record sprang up and so he approached the Limca Book of Records. They set a target to capture 10,000 different shots employing 100 within a duration of 12 hours on an analog camera with film. He exceeded the expectation by capturing more than 10,000 images in 11 hours and utilizing over 120 models.
After setting the world record in 2003, he became famous overnight and he was in the limelight. That was a turning point in his career. With the buzz helping him out to climb significantly on the ladder, he set up an office in Delhi with a team of around 15 and the business margin increased considerably. They grew to be the largest portfolio makers in Delhi of the time.
Later an advertising company approached him requesting for the rights to utilize the portfolios of models rather than hosting a complete photo shoot. That instilled the idea of posting the portfolios of the models. He did some research on the internet and to his shock, he was not the only one who found the idea compelling. The concept ‘stock photography’ was already on the move and had a market of US$1.5 billion. At the time of their launch, there were many big players in the space. But he was fortunate to find the missing link. None of these websites provided creative images of the Indian faces. That was where they invested their time and they started creating images in January 2005 and they launched Imagesbazaar in February 2006 with around 8000 images. In order to make sure that they
sow all their efforts in ImagesBazaar, he shut down their operations of their modeling business completely.
In starting, it was a complete disaster because of the fact that the images were based on their perception and were not good enough for the customers. Most of the time the site crashed and since he was not from an IT background, he had to resort to the IT crew who always complained about the server every time. Because of this no one visited their site and obviously they did not have any customers. Out of the need, he started learning programming languages from the Internet which were concerned with their business and he designed the complete back-end of the website. Because of his direct involvement the time taken to search images reduced to 1 second from a frightening 2 to 3 minute search. They gathered feedback from many advertising agencies and made a lot of changes in their IT base and their photography style as well. They added more images and then it worked out to be pleasing enough for their customers. And now they have the largest collection of Indian Photography.
