CAPTURING THE WILD

AMIDST PACKING FOR MONTH-LONG TRIPS TO REMOTE CORNERS OF THE WORLD TO SHOOT AWE-INSPIRING PICTURES, WILDLIFE, LANDSCAPE AND STREET PHOTOGRAPHER RANJAN RAMCHANDANI TAKES OUT A FEW MINUTES TO CHAT WITH TINA THAKRAR ABOUT THE RIGHT WAY TO WORK THE CAMERA

- TINA THAKRAR

As I write this, Ranjan Ramchandani is somewhere in Latin America, scouting for the next jungle and the next wild animal he’s going to be photographing. This trip marks the first in an action-packed year for the Singapore-based photographer, who’ll be heading on to Masai Mara for all its game, Brazil for its panthers, Ethiopia for its tribes and Rwanda for its gorillas, in the rest of 2020. Multi-award winning photographer, author and publisher Ranjan Ramchandani has always let the camera lead the way. And more often than not, his camera leads to some of the world’s wildest jungles and forest plains in Africa, Asia and the Americas. He’s known for his portraiture, street, wildlife and landscape photography, proof of which lies in the long list of group and solo shows in Berlin, Barcelona, Malaga besides India and Singapore, where his images have been displayed and celebrated.

Let’s go back in time for a bit, say about 50 years. Six-year-old Ranjan has received his first camera as a gift from his father. Ecstatic and clicking away, he followed through by taking photography as an extra-curricular activity at school and then using everything from the instruction manuals and the Internet to trial and error to learn all he could about photography.