I N CO N V E R S AT I O N W I T H ARUN MOHANRAJ
In Conversation with BIPP Member
Arun Mohanraj
Arun Mohanraj is a former doctor who found solace and passion in photography after his cancer diagnosis. For the past seven years, he has used his camera to cope with the difficulties of his journey, gradually transforming it into a lifelong pursuit. In just three and a half years as a professional, Arun has achieved remarkable success, most recently winning three golden cameras in the Federation of European Photographers Awards 2023. Arun’s expertise lies in wildlife, sports, and macro photography, and he regularly embarks on solitary expeditions to remote corners of the planet. In this interview, Arun gives insights into his journey, images and outlook on life.
Are you self-taught as a photographer?
What inspires you as a photographer?
Absolutely. It started with photography magazines and then a lot of YouTube. When I first joined photography clubs, it was one of the best decisions I made because you have a lot of in-house competitions, critique nights and talks from photographers.
It’s hard to explain. Even when I was an artist of pastel painting, it was challenging to say this is a painting I would like to do similarly. For photography, if I’m looking at pictures or projects, I sometimes see something and think I want to create something similar. As things have progressed, it’s quite hard to say who influences me, but more individual projects and pictures inspire me. One wildlife photographer, Austin Thomas, ‘s been quite influential; he came and gave a talk at our club.
Although the competitions initially motivated me, it’s not as important to me now, as it’s more about creating meaningful pictures. At one point, I was taking photos thinking it was going to do well in a certain competition, and then I realised this wasn’t the right approach. I should be enjoying the practice and trying to earn money from it. I started to do more projects instead of just capturing nice images. So now I’m working on more documentary and photojournalism projects than just wildlife per se.
What is the project you’re working on at the moment? I’m currently travelling in South Africa and Zambia, so it’s two different projects. The first one is about poaching in terms of wildlife conservation, so I meet
Image of Puffer Fish that won Golden Camera in the FEP Awards 2023 in the Nature category © Arun Mohanraj
When and why did you first get into photography? I started as a landscape photographer. I wasn’t very good at that, but it’s more because I love travelling, and I’ve been fortunate to travel around the world; as it stands, it’s 44 countries so far. Then I got into sports photography, and I was doing a bit of wildlife as well and then got stuck entirely with wildlife in terms of interest, and it also gelled with my travel. I then started to travel based on my photography to game reserves in different countries, and my lifestyle pattern changed to suit wildlife photography and macro – that’s another one of my interests. I used to do oil and pastel painting about 10 to 15 years ago; the photography was incidental. I was diagnosed with Lymphoma, which is cancer of my lymph node, it was a low time for me in terms of my mental well-being, and instead of painting, I started doing photography. One, it’s a little bit quicker, and two, I could de-stress 32 the PHOTOGRAPHER / 2023 / Issue Two
and distract my mind quite easily, and then I joined Chorley photography club and it became a bit more of a passion. I started doing wildlife and sports photography – I think there are transferable skills between the two genres. I would say I’ve worked for about seven years now as a photographer; as a professional, it has been around three and a half years. Did you have a career in pastel painting? It was more of an artistic outlet. I’ve exhibited work in local exhibitions with other artists. It’s more abstract work and portraits. What did you do as a career before photography? I work as a doctor as well, but since my illness, I only do part-time, but I’m a lot better now because of it. It gives me more time to do the photography, so I still do work at the hospital, but much less now.
Image of Jumping Spider that won Golden Camera in the FEP Awards 2023 in the Nature category © Arun Mohanraj Issue Two / 2023 / the PHOTOGRAPHER 33
