Had everything worked to plan, Raju Khokle would have been a chartered accountant. But, fortunately, passion won the day and today, Raju is known for his photography.
A Bengaluru-based wildlife and Nature photographer , Raju was recently in the city to interact with enthusiasts on the occasion of World Photography Day. He also shared valuable tips with the students of Sri Prakash Vidyaniketan.
“The best thing about being a photographer is that no two days are the same. One day you are shooting a heart-surgery, and the next you are on a chopper clicking photos of quarries,” he says. A dread for working a nine to five job, made him take up photography as a profession in 1996. The quest to follow his passion took him to UK and the USA where he worked and learnt the intricacies of photography.
He was introduced to photography at a young age by his uncle Hanumath Rao, who was also a photographer. “As a kid, I accompanied him and carried his equipment. He would ask for different lenses, I would fix them to the camera and hand it to him. That was my introduction to the camera,” he says. At the age of 15, he had his own camera and he began shooting Nature.
While his heart remains in Nature photography, Raju took to commercial photography early in his career. “With the onset of the internet in the 1990s people preferred downloading images of wildlife rather than buying them. Hence, I shifted to commercial photography,” he says.
The wide base of clientèle from the hospitality industry, architecture firms and lifestyle firms speak volumes of Raju’s versatility. The casual and soft-spoken photographer is a meticulous planner. “When I see the object, I know what kind of picture I want for it, where the lights should be placed and what kind of reflection I am looking for. Only then do I take the picture.” He says it is his extensive work with film rolls and negatives that has made him so methodical. “Photography before the digital camera was very different . We could not see the final product immediately and had to work for hours in the darkroom before seeing the final pictures. Maybe that is why more thought was put in framing and lighting,” he says. Commenting on how e-commerce has changed the world of commercial photography, Raju says,“ “There is no doubt that photography as a profession has blossomed due to e-commerce and the internet. But I have my doubts whether photography as an art has evolved.”
