Our campus celebrity this week is Rabi Sun, the original founder of the ‘Portraits of UBC’ photography project. Through his photography, Sun has crafted a platform to unite UBC’s community by capturing photos of students out and about on campus. While most of us are still in the midst of adjusting to university life in our first year, Sun on the other hand, managed to materialize his vision of Portraits of UBC after drawing inspiration from a Youtube video featuring a sideshow of 1000 portraits of people in London. Fast-forward 4 years, and Portraits of UBC has quickly become embedded in campus culture. In this interview, we discussed his favorite things about photography, advice for budding photographers and tips for students looking to be spotted by UBC Portraits! Despite the tremendous success of his project, the talented photographer remains modest and humble. Let’s dive into his world and see what makes him tick!
1. Tell me a little bit about yourself and your photography.
I’m just another person who’ll fade away in peoples’ memories as time progresses. Nothing more. If you want to remember me for a little bit, then here are some tidbits about me: I like to read, enjoy my alone time, and I’m just as confused about life as you.
My photography is a catalogue of my viewpoint in life in an ocean of an ever growing number of photographers. My photography is always changing and it follows my personality as I get older and become the person I will be in the future.
2. What is the overarching aim of the project?
The goal of the project is to showcase the people and students at UBC visually. We walk past each other all the time and over time I’ve noticed that people generally tend to avoid looking at each other. Most of us like being noticed, so this is also a way for a random person to get noticed on a random day.
3. How often do you go around campus to take photos of students?
Back in the day, it was every weekday school was in session, so Monday to Friday. These days, not as often just because I’m graduating and now there’s a team of photographers who will be doing so. No need to do it everyday anymore!
4. What’s your interaction with the people you photograph like?
It’s a mixture of similar and not so similar interactions. We’re all similar to each other in some regards, yet different. The interactions are almost always pleasant. It usually starts off with a hint of skepticism, a bite of interest, and finally people are pretty into it (most of the time). Sometimes, we end up getting into long conversations and end up standing around talking for close to an hour.
5. Lets turn one of your own questions back on you. If you can have a lifetime supply of anything, what would it be?
Not too sure, there’s already a lifetime supply of everything out there. A guaranteed lifetime supply of something? Probably health.
6. Which one of the many questions you’ve asked spawned the most interesting responses? Any favorite answers?
I’m afraid that has been lost to the sands of time. I’ll probably be reminded of some of the interesting answers later on down the road when I’m at work or see something that reminds me of that moment. Human memory works oddly like that.
7. Do you have any favorite moments while shooting for UBC portraits? What part of the process do you enjoy the most?
My favourite moment would have to involve the guy who offered to climb a lamppost and hang off the street sign. That was something. As for the process, the moment I can see that peoples’ reactions have changed from skepticism and apprehension to “Oh hey this is interesting! Let’s do it!” would be the most enjoyable moment. I usually end up seeing it in their eyes, faces, and body language.
8. What kind of feedback have you received so far?
I’d say 99.99% of the feedback has been positive. People love it and they usually enjoy participating. However as with anything, there has been some criticism and a while back I was stopped by Campus Security. Once. A guy with a camera, you do the math. They were just doing their jobs though and it was cleared up later.
9. What’s the most important thing you’ve learned while doing UBC portraits?
People skills and empathy. That and everyone has some sort of story behind them. We tend to forget that when we look at another person we don’t know; forgetting that makes it so much easier to treat other people as just objects.
10. What are some of the perks and pitfalls of being part of this project?
A perk would be being a conversation topic among friends and being called “that photographer guy”. The slight fame is nice too, but it’s by far the biggest pitfall since I won’t be getting that again once I graduate and start roaming about outside of UBC. I’ll being doing my best to downplay the significance of this project to my ego since it won’t mean that much outside of university.
11. Do you have any tips for those who really want to be spotted by a UBC Portraits photographer?
Look happy or approachable, or both. Ideally both. We’re people too, not just photographers. Some days we’re shy and we’re not always feeling our best those days either.
12. Any words of advice for budding photographers?
Develop a style. This applies to anything, landscapes, portraits, or macro (and anything else I missed). Develop people skills, this will help you meet new people and learn from others too.
13. What are some other projects that we might be seeing down the road?
Off the top of my head, nothing really. I’m graduating! It’ll probably involve some travelling photos. Soul searching perhaps? The new photographers may come up with even better projects than I do. That would be the best.
14. Any final comments you would like to add?
Winter is coming.