Mumbai: Born and raised in the Capital, cinematographer Sachin Krishn started his career as a journalist covering civic issues. It was his fascination for still photography that resulted in him enrolling for a course in cinematography at the FTII in Pune. A hardcore Hindi movie buff, his time at the institute, he says, is what changed his world.

“Within the first week of my joining the institute, they were showing Seven Samurai. As the film started unspooling, within first half hour or so I realised Sholay was better. It’s like gang of 40 people and he is going to circle each one of them and it will take four hours. I walked out. At the end of second year, I saw Seven Samurai again and this time, I was hooked and stunned. That is how perception of cinema changes completely,” says Krishn.

Just months after passing out, Krishn was offered to shoot a masala Bollywood film by producer Ismail Shroff who was impressed with his diploma film.

But days into the shoot, he realised this wasn't the way he was meant to work. It did no justice to what he'd learnt at the Institute. So right after completing the first schedule, he excused himself from the project.

“I had been there in the institute for three years and by that time my mind was in the Kieslowsky and Travosky mood, like any other fresh institute pass out. I could not reconcile with the hardcore Bollywood film where the actors walk in slow motion and you have to backlit her every time and zoom in on any expression that matters,” says Krishn.

Avoiding typical potboilers which he cannot still relate to, Krishn cut his teeth shooting television soaps. The big film break came with Sourabh Narang's horror piece Vaastu Shastra, but it was his work on Vishal Bharadwaj's Blue Umbrella that made the industry sit up and take notice.

Blue Umbrella wasn't an easy film to shoot - freezing weather and difficult lighting conditions made it a gruelling shoot, but the beauty of Himachal and the tenderness of the story was well captured.

Despite the film's massive delay in release, the offers came pouring in. Krishn followed it up with Onir's Bas Ek Pal and Meghna Gulzar's Just Married. Coming up next, Sudhir Mishra's Khoya Khoya Chand.

“Blue Umbrella is set in a village. It’s a feel-good, feel-bad film, it’s a children’s film. Bas Ek Pal was very metropolitan film which required sophisticated look. Vaastu Shastra is where the camera is the protagonist which is meant to shake people. Khoya Khoya Chand is like a classical genre, the approach changes completely and that’s is the fun of it. I would not like to just follow with one genre and master it,” says Krishn.

Currently shooting Mishra's new film Tera Kya Hoga Johnny, Krishn will slip behind the lens for Onir's next, My Brother's Bride and Sourabh Narang's horror flick K-11. Unlike other cinematographers who bide their time in between features shooting ad-films, Krishn has no interest in commercials. The money may be good, but he says he doesn't enjoy the job.

“The only commercial that I have shot is with Vishal Bharadwaj. When we were shooting, we had the client telling us to light up the product, put a spotlight on that name and the client would ask if we can make the name more glossier and both me and Vishal were looking at each other, thinking, this kind of money is really difficult. So, I thought that was the first and last ad film for me in long time,” he says.

The big dream for him is film direction, but that’s only when he chances upon a story that he's itching to tell.

Until then, it's lights and camera, and of course setting the mood for some of the most interesting films that come his way.