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Prathamesh Vinod Ghadekar
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Award winning Nature and Wildlife Photographer
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Award winning Street and People Photographer
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Founder and Owner of Lifestyle Photography company Momentographers
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Featured in various International news and publications
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Naturalist and Environmentalist
My Story
Born and brought up in a suburban area, I had no touch with wild animals for most of my early childhood. Everything changed when my friend Makarand introduced me to a Wildlife rescue and rehabilitation group mainly run by Nitin Nilegaonkar and Babu Nayar in my hometown Badlapur. With them I experienced snakes first hand and they fantasized me to the core ! I started reading about them and found them extremely interesting considering their unique anatomy and characters. I found it very unfortunate that there are a lot of misunderstandings and superstitions in people about Snakes. I wished to somehow spread awareness and eradicate the un-necessary fear people had about them. When I was 12 years old, I started rescuing snakes from human settlements and releasing them in nearby natural habitats. It has been so many years now and I still have the same respect and love towards Snakes and other reptiles.
After a few months of plain rescue and release, I thought of documenting the snakes before releasing. Mobile phone cameras were rare and expensive at that time so I used to borrow point and shoot cameras from a friends and click some record images of Wildlife around me. This gave me a sense of how deep and immense the world of smaller animals is. Along with Snakes, I started photographing other Reptiles, Amphibians, Spiders, Insects, Bugs and almost anything that I found around me.
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After a few years, noticing my interest in Photography, my Father gifted me my first DSLR camera, A Canon EOS 7D with a 18-55 mm kit lens. With the new powerful tool, I acquired a set of Macro Diopters for my kit lens and started photographing the Macro wildlife around me. On my first trip in the Western Ghats to Amboli, I found a Malabar Pit Viper feeding on a Malabar Gliding Frog. I took a few images and one of them landed me the my first International award, the Nactus Award won me a brand new Canon EOS 5D Mark III, my first Full frame camera. Life changed a lot after this. I started a job for a USA based company but somehow I knew that I wanted to have a career in photography to stay happy. Thus I started a Wedding and Lifestyle photography company by the name Momentographers in 2014. This allowed me to stay focused as a Professional photographer and being self employed meant that I could dedicate as much time as I wish to my Wildlife and People photography. 7 years down the line, I have been juggling with my Commercial photography and Non-commercial photography assignments. I have won several National and International awards as well as recognitions in this period and have been featured in various International news and publications. I still believe I have a lot to learn and achieve and I find myself extremely privileged that I was able to pursue my passion and turn it into my profession.