PERPETUALISING MOMENTS

Sanak is a travel photographer with a passion for shooting landscapes, urbanscapes and architecture. Professionally, he is a practising optometrist based in Muscat, Oman, for the last 14 years. His work has been exhibited in more than 30 countries globally, and he has more than 200 awards to his name. He was also awarded a few distinctions such as EFIP from Federation of Indian Photography and EFIAP from Federation international de L’art Photographique (Brussels).

- Sweta Baruah

He says, “Photography education plays a vital role in my endeavour to create a shared learning platform. I am convinced that photography, in addition to being taught, must be transmitted. It is a passion, a desire to express oneself that should be handed down to new practitioners of the art. In my opinion, photography provides us with an opportunity to get immersed in what only nature can give us, and immortalise it to the fullest.”

What spurred your interest in photography? Was there a defining moment in your life that lead you on this journey?

My father was in the Indian Railways and as an incentive, he was entitled for yearly free tickets which provided for my family to travel. At the time, I remember always carrying a small analogue camera to document the memories of our trip, but I was nowhere serious about photography. It was late in 2011 during the first rice ceremony of my son that I hired a photographer to cover the event and got attracted to the “big” camera that the photographer used. I tried to capture a couple of shots with that “big” camera and felt good and decided to gift myself a D-SLR. However, the liking soon came in the way of my busy schedule as I was a full-time professional for many years. It was early in 2013 when I took out my camera again for a contest announced in the Muscat festival organised by Times of Oman. A defining moment in life has to be guided with some motivation and that came in the form of winning the “grand prize” in the event. A personal appreciation from the web editor also acted as a positive catalyst and since then I became regular with my newly found interest.