Raju A K has three professions to keep him going. Firstly, closest to his heart is advertising photography catering to agencies and direct clients. Secondly, he is a Director of the BDM Co Pvt. Ltd. a family company involved in developing real estates. Finally, he consults as a Chief Naturalist to boutique resorts around the periphery of forested areas to study, observe, record and train the resort personnel to balance the wildlife activities without disturbing the flora and fauna.

In his free time he travels to breathe pure oxygen and to shoot wildlife and nature.

His extensive travel in the country and abroad to learn from people and professionals has widened his perspective of photography, narrowing it down to minute details that add up to make a picture.  He loves to experiment with light and cameras and ends up building his own proprietary equipment.

He lives and breathes Photography.

Some Photographic Awards & Achievements

• He won his first national award in 1982.
• In 1985, he became one of the youngest Indian to win his first international gold medal from Taiwan in which over 1000 photographers from 48 countries participated.
• He was placed among the top five photographers in the country during the years 1986 to 1988.
• In 1989, he topped the list and was awarded ‘Nature Photographer of the Year’ by Federation of Indian Photography. In the same year, he was conferred ‘Artiste’ of Federation Internationale de L’Art Photographique, Belgium, an international body of photographers affiliated to UNESCO.
• In 1990, he was honoured ‘Outstanding young person’ by Junior Chamber, Bangalore.
• In 1991, the British Broadcasting Corporation, UK; ‘Highly recommended’ his work on endangered life, subsequently reproduced in the BBC Radio.
• In 1992; he was selected ‘Cultural Ambassador’ to Brazil, by Rotary International, where he presented a series of audio visuals on Indian culture and wildlife.
• In 1994; he again won a gold medal, after a bronze in 1991 and silver in 1989 at the Taipei exposition in China.
• In all; he has over a hundred national awards / certificates of merit and over 400 accepted works, won between the years 1982 to 1994.
• In 2000; he was one among eighty selected and honoured for the last century’s ‘Masters of the millennium’ by Youth Photographic Society.
• In 2015; after a gap of twenty years, he participated again in a nation-wide competition of photographing cars organized by Mercedes Benz, co-organized by Better Photography Magazine and stood in second place.
• In 2017, in addition to his professional photography, he took up consultation as a ‘Chief Naturalist’ to Little Earth Group, Resorts and Boutique Hotels’ to photo-document and to create a Bio-diversity Register along with Environmental and Hygiene Audit , in all their six properties in Ooty, Avalanche, Karwar, Bandipur and Chikmagalur.

Today, he caters to a large and satisfied clientele for their publicity images reproduced in many catalogues, advertisements of websites of all companies located worldwide. In his free time, he has photographed more than 775 species of birds, 50 mammals and innumerable insects and landscapes shot across the globe

You can follow him here:
https://www.facebook.com/raju.ak.7

-YPS Executive Committee