Meet Raghuram Ashok, a student at IIITB, specialising in IT, whose primary drive is photography — ‘to freeze life into frames’. He also had a brief stint with playing th flute. But the drive to picture ‘candid moments, true to life’ over-rode all else and today he has two photo exhibitions — at CKP(2006) and Bharat Vidya Bhavan(June, 2007) and about five pictures sold, in his kitty.  Higher studies for him are a means to a lucrative job — the key to the bread needed to keep his expensive hobby going.

This year, his photograph ‘The Thirsty Ancestor’ was chosen for the Fotografia Festival Internationale di Roma, Rome, Italy that featured amateur photographers from all over the world. To Raghuram, this photo featuring a man feeding water to a monkey  depicts the bond between the new age man and his ancestor through the noble act of feeding.

“Photography to me is that constant hunt for potent moments from day-to-day life into which I strive to fill life. It requires a keen eye to freeze life into a frame,” Raghuram  says.
He has been interested in photography since childhood, for his father, a skilled photographer always kept him in the company of a focussed camera.

Inspired by Henri Cartier Bresson, Eugene Smith, Steve McCurry and Raghu Rai, Raghuram says that the camera is a mere instrument whose quality does not really matter when the ‘focus’ is right. Being a techie, he even endorses the mobile phone photography, for a quick capture of fleeting moments.
“Like Michael Angelo’s paintings are more significant than his brushes, photographs must speak volumes irrespective of the camera employed,” he said animatedly.

Speaking about what he  enjoys shooting most, people in the streets, the market place, and any random ‘candid stuff’ that is close to real life pose a good challenge he says.

As for his future plans, he beams, “I want to shoulder that critical responsibility of conveying real life through pictures and documentaries. I hope to make documentaries on culture, places and people from various walks of life, particularly the humbler connoisseurs like potters and weavers. I don’t intend to use photography for commercial purposes.”