Kunal Chawla: A Senior Profile Portrait by Rohit Padmakumar (2015)

My profile this year is Kunal Chawla. He is an online educator at Udacity, a company that strives to provide free and accessible learning by using online courses. Kunal has always been passionate towards teaching. Starting as a middle school science teacher in New Delhi, India, Kunal has explored the means of education from multiple vantage points. He claims to have a ''knack'' for asking the questions a novice learner would ask. He keeps this in mind when he creates and teaches his courses that range from iPhone applications to Android programming for beginners. The idea of ''role reversal'' is what allows Kunal to put himself in the minds of his learners, so he can target exactly what and how he needs to teach certain concepts to his students. Through streamed lessons and exercises on an online platform, Kunal is able to teach thousands that are keen on learning. By having experience both in a physical and virtual classroom, he has mastered the art of teaching and what it takes to balance the educational system for those that cannot afford high-quality studies.

In this photo, I asked Kunal to stand in one of the offices at Udacity. Using the rule of thirds and a shallow depth of field with a telephoto lense, Kunal’s face is aesthetically appealing to the viewer’s eye, as he stands out from the background. I also put a slight vignette on the image to draw the viewer’s eye closer to the focus of the image. The viewer is innately drawn towards Kunal with the use of this vignette. By increasing the exposure, saturation, and contrast levels in Adobe Photoshop, the colors pop out from the image more, making the piece overall more attractive. Moreover, I made use of a warming filter to slightly brighten up Kunal’s face and make his skin tones appear more natural. Each of these steps were easy to manage from an artist’s perspective, but I struggled with finding a true background that was visually appealing, yet not invasive by crowding the image. After testing multiple locations, I found the bookshelf which served as not only an interesting background, but one that represents the theme of what Kunal does.