“I work as a software developer for survival, but for living I do photography” these words sum up what photography means to Pune based Anurag Parveker. His landscape photography can make anyone stop and stare at the detailing each image has. Anurag is a self-taught photographer, who after a lot of soul searching realized that it is the mountains that blow him away with their serenity and beauty. To him these are the beautiful beasts who he loves to capture in a photograph. So after a grueling week of work, Anurag heads to the mountains every weekend for treks and accompanying him through this weekend of solitude is his best friend, the Camera. “If you count your hours from Friday 3 am till Monday morning you have 60 hours at hand and to waste that time just partying or drinking did not seem like the perfect way to utilize this time. After all how many times and how much would you drink or smoke up? So I decided that I should give my creativity and vision a let out through these treks and photography” explains Anurag.
Anurag’s view about life and a bent towards creativity can be attributed to his parents who broke the monotony of life through reading. “I started reading because I saw my parents do it and it built my interest in books. I personally feel that reading literature expands your mind” says Anurag. It was probably the reading that started teasing Anurag’s imagination giving him a push to find a means to express. What pushed him further were the numerous travels that became more or a necessity than need because of his father’s government job. “During the travel an image used to pop up in my mind and sometimes I captured it, while some other times I used to itch to find the right moment to do so” confesses Anurag.
Parveker has been pursuing his passion for photography since 2011 but passion turned into obsession in 2014 when he got his very first camera, a Nikon D5200. “Till that time I used to use different cameras. Infact the first camera that I ever held in my hand and I clicked pictures with was Kodak D500 that my father got when I was very young. But when I got bitten by the photography bug I wanted to buy a professional digital camera but I didn’t have the money for it. So I saved some money and requested my younger brother to pitch in some more and I got a digital camera” shares Anurag.
He shares with us some incidents which tell us how intoxicating can the beauty of mountains and love of photography be. “I was on a bike trip to Leh with my friends. One of our bikes went missing, we had no idea where those two riders were, where their bike was and everyone was worried sick. That moment I set my eyes on the Pangong lake, I was almost hypnotized. Instead of searching for my lost friends I asked my friend riding the bike to stop so that I could click the picture. It later became a big joke that was cracked on me everytime but at that moment I knew I just could not let that moment pass. I wanted to click that picture and I knew it would be an epic one” shares Anurag. Well all we can say is that hypnotic moment helped Paverker bring back a piece of Leh to a ravenous audience who craves for the peace he captured amidst those mountains.
