Dhruv Wadkar isn’t hooked to posting selfies or albums on social networking sites; the teenager’s albums are usually a part of wildlife campaigns or like his latest one, a coffee table book.
In fact photography is a byproduct of his enthusiasm for wildlife. He discovered his talent for photography when he was only seven years old, when he accompanied his mother on a wildlife safari. Intrigued by the jungle, birds and the glimpse of a tiger, Dhruv recalls “peeping into the camera of my mother's friends” on that safari and being handed over a camera and told to ‘go shoot’.
When the group returned that day, Dhruv was surprised to see that his photos were saved and shown to others. “It was a confidence booster. According to the group that included avid photographers, I framed things well and could catch the mood of the wild,” he says.
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Encouraged by that response, Dhruv went on to capture varied shades of nature; from wildlife parks in India, wild animals, to parks abroad. When he was a student of Delhi Public School, Nacharam in the city, he spent holidays visiting wildlife parks in India. “My pictures were first displayed for public viewing at a national exhibition in New Delhi in 2009. There I was the youngest participant among many wildlife lensmen. I was selected as the Teen Brand Ambassador for the Earth Matters Foundation, and the Wildlife Savers Society. I was also invited to the Corbett National Park by the Chief Conservator of Forests to photograph the park," says Dhruv.
As part of the 'Teens for Tigers' team, Dhruv’s images were selected for the World Wide Fund for Nature's calendar in 2013. Later two photographs he submitted for the photo exhibition ‘Call of the Tiger’, organised by Wildlife Savers Society in association with Earth Matters Foundation, were exhibited along with 75 photographs by 32 prominent wildlife photographers from all over India.
By virtue of being the youngest contributor at the exhibition, Dhruv has been appointed the first teenage brand ambassador of The Wildlife Savers Society and Earth Matters Foundation and received honorary life membership to the two societies. Yet “Studies keep me occupied and my friends don’t know I can take photos," he laughs.
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When he moved with his family to China and Singapore, studies posed a challenge. Yet when the coffee table book Parks of Singapore was offered, he was ready: “I like tough challenges like the Parks of Singapore project.”
Is he ready for bigger assignments? Young Dhruv says, “I am an amateur and yet to learn post processing and a lot of other techniques.”