The wild world

Close encounters

His forte is to shoot moments that are beyond his control. Live action is what he says attracts him. If one sees his pictures, they can see that most of his shots are of a cheetah leaping through the air or going on a hunt.

Ashish Parmar, a City-based photographer, who started his career 20 years back right after school, has carved a niche for himself in the world of photography. His candid shots and those ‘caught in action’ are the most talked about among some of the shots that he has captured through the years.

He says, “I started as a studio photographer and ran a photo studio for about 10 years before I got a big break in 2010 to be the official photographer for ‘The Royal Challengers Bangalore’. Apart from this, I conduct a lot of photography workshops, in and around the country. Initially, I thought of pursuing it once a month, but after seeing the growing market and the digital cameras coming in, I saw in it a good potential and made photography my bread and butter.”

Photography, he says, was his hobby but his disinterest in pursuing higher studies and getting into a regular job led him to take it up as a full-time career. “I didn’t want my life to be monotonous and wanted to do something today that I hadn’t done yesterday. Even my parents were absolutely supportive of my choice of career and there has been no looking back since then. However, if I was not a photographer, I would have become a chef,” he says.

Regular portraits don’t really impress him; wildlife photography is what he is into and he believes in capturing animal habitats and how they live in jungles. He recollects his first wildlife click which he says was on his trip to ‘Maasai Mara’ in 2007; since he didn’t know what the place had to offer, his expectations weren’t that high. However, the first thing that he saw was a cheetah going on a hunt. “I was totally overwhelmed looking at it. That click was an absolute delight, everything was in place. It was perfectly in my focal length and my settings were right. I just had to take a few clicks. That’s one of the best shots I’ve taken till now.”

One of his photographs was recently chosen to be a part of the ‘Apple World Gallery’ in a recent campaign by the brand. Talking about that, he says, “That picture was totally surreal, it was pure luck and I would say lady luck was by my side. She was looking gorgeous that day. It was my wife’s first Diwali after our marriage, I thought of taking a picture and later uploaded it on Instagram. It was in December when I got a call, but then I thought someone was playing a prank on me. However, when I got a mail from them, I was in shock. In no time, the picture went viral. I had never imagined that it would become a part of the ‘Apple World Gallery’,” says a delighted Ashish.

Being a photographer is not an easy task. One needs to be alert and focussed on the subject to get the best picture, and one just cannot afford to miss any moment. The most difficult shot he captured was the star trail in Ladakh. “I have been a big fan of astro photography. I wanted to shoot the star trails and had to wait for almost 23 hours to get the shot I wanted. I spent the night on the terrace when the temperature dropped down to 5 degrees and after 23 hours, I got the perfect click. That was an amazing experience,” says Ashish.