Y.S. RANA, CHANDIGARH—Most of Himachalis may have migrated to other States in search of greener pastures, better openings and faster growth but it was not the case with Chauhan. Time-pass passion for Vinod Chouhan, from a small non-descript hamlet in district Shimla of Himachal Pradesh took him to a globe-trotting photographer. Hailing from a small village of Kot Khai in Shimla district, Vinod Chouhan, an electronics engineer, has been awarded with the Associate ICS Award by the Image Colleague Society, International, USA for his outstanding contribution in photography on April 2.
Keep his outstanding works in photography and his passion, Mr Chaouhan has been assigned the prestigious project of photo documentation of Indian Heritage including all the heritage properties of India including ancient temples, churches, forts, monasteries, masjids and old monuments with foreign collaboration. He has completed the photo documentation of heritage properties in Himachal Pradesh.
While talking to The India Post, Mr Chauhan said that had photography not been in his blood, he did not get international fame. He further stated that he has been in IT Training Business for the past 23 years with Jetking computer hardware and networking training centres in Delhi, Chandigarh and Ludhiana and manufacturing and selling GPS based vehicle tracking system. “I could not even have imagined in my wildest dreams that I would end-up becoming a renowned photographer,” said he. Being a frequent traveler, photography at initial stage was a time-pass passion for him but because of frequent traveler, he integrated his journeys with photography and the mixture of the two took it to his soul, he added.
A number of gold, silver and bronze medals to his credit at international level, he was awarded gold medal by the photography society of America; best heritage and monument award. He is also the member of photographic society of America. He has also achieved more than 1000 acceptances from more than 35 countries across the world.
At national level, he was honoured by the Federation of Indian Photography (FIP) for his outstanding contribution in the field of photography. He also won a number of medals and acceptances in national Salons. He is also the president of Tricity Photo Art Society. The society has been awarded with country’s number one photographic club. Besides he is also the life member of IIPC (India) and ICS, California (USA).
Now photography for him is not a passion but a way to go back to the old, to the forgotten heritage valuables and preserve these with a click of camera. A click of camera a decade ago brought him a number of distinctions to his fold that also tuned into the beginning of a phase for Mr Chauhan.