 In my previous life, I used to work in the technology industry, and I specifically worked in, you know, Linux and open-source technologies, but somewhere along the way, my true passion took over. You know, I used to love wildlife, I used to love photography, so I just quit my job and one day decided to follow my passion, which is wildlife photography. One of the things I really experienced with doing this was actually being in the jungle and having those amazing moments. I don't know how many of you spent time in the jungle, but it's a spiritual experience to be in the jungle with the wildlife and the environment. It's just really beautiful. And as a photographer, I was trying my best to share that experience with the rest of the world. For me, the photography was the medium to share this experience with the rest of the world. So I was sharing this through online media and things like that. But then I was hit with a dilemma, a very difficult dilemma. Conventional wisdom told me that I shouldn't give away my pictures free. Conventional wisdom told me that I should charge for every picture I put it out. But I thought to myself, if I'm going to ask, I'm going to make people pay for my pictures, how will I get my work out to people? As an artist, it's a very difficult dilemma. Your primary intention is to get your work out, but if you're going to hold it back with copyrights and payments, it's never going to reach the larger audience. So I made it free. You know, from day one, I have no idea how I was going to make money out of photography and I was out there in the jungle and I just said, I don't care. I want to share my experiences and I want to give freedom to share this. So all my pictures from day one were free, online, high resolution. And people loved it. And the amazing thing to see was when you give freedom to people, people respect freedom. Just the way you share your books, share your things, people are sharing pictures. And my friends were horrified. I'm just scared that people are taking your pictures off your website and sharing with others. I said, no, it's a good thing. And I'm glad they're taking my pictures. In fact, I told my friend, I'll be very worried if they stop taking pictures from my website. That means they don't like my pictures anymore. But eventually I made a full-time career out of it just by keeping my pictures free. But how did I do that? It's making these connections. You don't know. You know, when you're starting out, you really don't know how these dots connect to each other. So for example, when I made my pictures free, a lot of interesting things happened. For example, you see the picture of the snake. Universal Studios made this movie, Snakes on the Plane. And they searched for it. They loved the picture. They took the picture. And the movie official CD, the DVD cover, has this picture. They never told me about it because it was under creative commons. But I was very happy when they sent me the check home saying that here's the money. We know we don't have to pay you, but, well, the fact that you kept it online and we love your picture, we're going to pay you for it. It's a very ugly looking frog, isn't it? It's a frog called a purple frog, which was discovered a few years ago, you know, just in the last decade. It's a very strange frog. A lot of people have photographed it. It's really pretty rare to find it. But I was one of the first photographers who took a picture and put it up free for the world. So I put it on Wikipedia, Wiki Commons, where people could share and all that. And guess what? People picked it up, you know? This was shared all over the internet and to a point where my server crashed because I was getting so much traffic, because a lot of sites all over the internet picked it up. But guess what? I'm a professional photographer today and I work for National Geographic and BBC today because of that picture. Because BBC was doing a film on frogs and I was the only guy who put the picture up. They contacted me and said, hey, you know how to, where to find this frog? We like your picture and we want you to work for us. So even though you're keeping your content free, it pays off in another way. But it gets even more interesting. And this is the beauty of giving your work out, giving freedom, people respect freedom and people make interesting things with freedom. There were artists in the other part of Europe in the US who take my pictures and draw paintings with those pictures. I didn't know this again. Till the day I get a government home, there's a check waiting for me and says, this lady says, you know, I've painted with your pictures. I made a lot of money out of it. Here's your pictures. Here's 30% share. And she sent me two big frames home. So I can keep it in my house. I love it. I hate seeing my own pictures every day, but I love seeing these paintings. It got even more interesting. There's this band in the UK called Shekaan. I'm sure some of you might have heard it. They've loved the pictures. I don't know how they came across my pictures. They just loved it. And they made a complete music video, which gets aired on MTV and all that, just with using my pictures as slideshow. So I want to leave you with this picture. It's Mona Lisa, the costliest painting on earth. It's valued at $700 million. It's not for sale, but it's valued at that much. In a picture that maybe three or four billion people on this earth recognize, in fact, we see it on the streets. We just walk past it without even looking at it. But why is this picture so valuable? It's because it grows on you. We've consumed this picture so many times in our lives that people value this picture a lot. So I just want to end this talk with a small realization I've had as an artist. People respect freedom. People will pay for freedom. If you're an artist, there's no better way to get your workout than keeping it free. And trust me, people will eventually pay for the freedom that you give them. Thank you.