Passion drives one to places and for Naveen Munjal, quite literally. A camera up his shoulders with his walking shoes on, he strolled the streets and met many unknowns who eventually became the subject of his camera. The Managing Director of Hero Eco Group, Naveen Munjal, loves to see the world from his viewfinder and is exhibiting his first series of photographs titled “As I See It” at Vadehra Art Gallery, Delhi. The photos will be on view from March 26 to April 18. “As I See It” is a travelogue collection of his pictures taken essentially on the streets and corners of New York. “The pictures have been shot over the past 3 years of my travels and some of them being as recent as last month in Stockholm. It’s about my journey, my experiences, my travels, my passions,” says Munjal.If you visit his facebook page, it has stories of Indian festivities from Udaipur to bar dog in Berlin capturing the essence of street photography with no particulars in mind but come what may as long as the camera finds something interesting; discovering the significant other of the trivial. Munjal’s forte is street photography, he enjoys the “unpredictability that the street brings” including stones thrown at him! “When people see me pointing my camera towards them I just smile, sometimes they smile back, and sometimes they frown or get angry; I have even had things thrown at me!” he laughs. But the sheer joy of capturing people, from all walks of life; each with their own story, captured for eternity is what drives him further.Being the MD of a giant group and a photographer must not come easy to juggle but apparently it has its own perks and very lucrative ones because Munjal admits that most of the pictures he has taken are during his official trips. He is guilty of never travelling without his camera. In fact, majority of the pictures in the exhibition have been taken on his official trips. “Luckily my work involves a lot of travel to places I would normally not have visited. I have even walked into important meetings with a camera slung on my side. There have been times when a sight would struck me and I would walk out of the meeting to shoot,” he says.The man who has never studied photography professionally, attended a photography workshop by renowned American photographer Jay Maisel for five days in New York and that’s what, he thinks, has added a perspective to his photography; “It changed my perception of people, the inanimate, the everyday and the mundane. I see the world differently now. I shoot, I capture, I smile and I shiver when I see the depth of emotions recorded in the pictures. The workshop was an intense, immersive experience,” he adds.Every photographer has a zillion stories to tell through his pictures but then there are some which are imprinted on their mind. Being a street photographer capturing moments, Munjal has many to tell but there is one he cherishes sharing; of a couple who let him take their pictures on the Brooklyn Bride while they were fulfilling a longstanding dream of coming to New York. “When I sent the edited picture to Zita and Christian after my return to India, they said that mine was the best picture of them together and they had placed it on their bedside. That mail from them was by far the best read of my life,” says Munjal.This exhibition is his first and he claims to have just dipped his toes in the water. “There is a long way to go,” as he says. For the photographer, his photography is not just a stress buster but a way of life which keeps him grounded to the present moment.-“As I See It” is on view from March 26- April 18 at Vadehra Art Gallery, D-53, Defence Colony, New DelhiFollow @ARTINFOIndia
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