Photo Tips: Developing an Art-Informed Professional Photography Practice

🌍 Our Photo Tips online talk series offer a safe digital learning environment for the photography community worldwide. These sessions provide insight, inspiration, and open dialogue with industry professionals and creative community members.

🎤 This talk explores photography as a relational practice, rooted in care, trust, and co-creation. In this Photo Tips session, we’ll be joined by multimedia artist and curator Vedika Kushalappa. Vedika is working across visual design, photography, moving image, digital, and print design. Her artistic practice explores relationships between people and ecology. 

✨ Whether you're an emerging photographer looking to deepen your community-engaged practice, or an artist trying to navigate the practical realities of funding and exhibiting your work, this talk offers both creative inspiration and practical guidance.

💬 Topics covered:

• Vedika will share how participatory and co-creative approaches shape their practice into multimedia outcomes.
• They’ll explore what it means to build trust and care-centered relationships with the communities being photographed.
• Working ethically with land, place, and people as equal collaborators.
• Navigating applications for grants, fellowships, and open calls.
• Preparing and exhibiting photographic work in museums and gallery contexts.
• Considering photography beyond the still image and expanding into cross-disciplinary work. 

💬 The session will close with an open Q&A and informal discussion, creating space to connect, reflect, and share ideas.

About the Organisers

Vedika Kushalappa is a multimedia artist and curator, rooted in co-creating a more joyful and equitable future for people and the planet. Working across visual design, photography, moving image, digital and print design, her artistic practice uses participatory methodologies to explore relationships between people and ecology. She founded grassroots creative collective 'Culture Shock'; designing exhibitions and programming that creates cross-cultural discourse in the arts and culture industry. She won the Emerging Practice Award 2025 (awarded by CLIMAVORE x Jameel at RCA) for her work documenting sustainable and regenerative practices in her hometown Coorg, India.

The Photography Foundation is a London-based charity set up in 2019 to create pathways into photography careers and the wider creative industries. We are driven by our belief that everyone deserves a fulfilling creative career, and that creativity thrives when barriers to opportunity are removed. We have grown into a dynamic hub of creativity, community, and career development for diverse audiences. Our events programme is designed to support a sustainable creative career by enhancing your skills, promoting wellbeing, and underlining the importance of making time for inspiration and creativity in your practice. Our programme brings together a range of events with different pricing levels, allowing us to better reflect the breadth of the photography and creative careers landscape. To ensure our events remain accessible, we offer a select number of bursary tickets for paid events, and all ticket proceeds help us to continue to deliver low cost and free events for our community. We are The Photography Foundation - empowering emerging creatives to see, capture, and shape their futures

📸 Photo Tips Online Talks FAQs

🎯 What Are Photo Tips Online Talks?

The Photo Tips Online Talk Series is a safe learning space for photographers of all experience levels. Hosted by The Photography Foundation, these one-hour virtual sessions feature guest speakers from across the creative and photographic industries.

Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned pro, our talks offer a chance to:

• Learn new photography techniques and career tips

• Understand image licensing and brand pitching

• Hear firsthand insights from professionals in the industry

• Ask questions and engage in open discussion

👥 Who Can Join?

• Age: Open to anyone aged 16+

• Experience Level: All levels welcome — from total beginners to professional photographers!

🎟️ Tickets & Cost

• Pay What You Can - Suggested donation: £3 per session

• Can’t pay right now? No problem — enter £0 at checkout to join for free.

As a registered charity, your contributions help support our mission: using photography as a tool to drive positive social change and fight poverty.

💻 How to Join

1. Book your ticket via our Ticket Tailor event page.

2. Receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link.

📹 Recording

Can’t make it? Register anyway and we’ll send you the recording afterwards. Faces from the participants will not be publicly shared. You can watch all previous Photo Tips talks in our YouTube digital library.

📧 Accessibility

If you have any accessibility requirements or questions please email Events@thephotographyfoundation.org

Image credits: @Vedika Kushalappa

Vedika Kushalappa