Photriya Venky: To everyone who asks me HOW? I say ‘Beyond faith, comes believing in your dreams!’
Born into a Brahmin family, I was told that being a Poojari was my call, I believed them blindly and after failing my intermediate exams, I left my parents to assign me as a poojari. After my duties commenced and I would give haarathi, every dawn and dusk. The beauty time, with the sun, involved awestruck me! I would stare into the sky’s beauty, blank and happy but it passed. I didn’t want to let it go, but it did, every day! That was when I wanted to capture it, save it and keep it!
I saved money for months and got myself a basic camera, with which I explore the beauty of photography! I and a friend would go into the village, clicking everything that captured our eyes. Lucky for me, I read an article about a famous photographer in the newspaper, learned that he graduated from JNTU, and decided I wanted to study photography! I rewrote and passed my exam, applied for an entrance at JNTU but being an OC candidate, didn’t get in! However, a student dropped out and after 2 months, I attended the college.
Coming from Telugu medium schooling, my biggest task at hand was to understand English! The lectures were simply Greek and Latin but I managed to learn and started ‘V studio’ with a friend in SR Nagar. Our hopes were on cloud 9 but only disappointment landed. We got zero customers, so we started inviting shop owners and clicked pictures for free, the only condition was to place them outside! So we got the word spreading, people started coming in and although they were petty opportunities, which hardly paid and made me sell my dad’s scooter to sustain, I couldn’t give up! I knew this was me and I had to build myself.
Using every opportunity from Orkut, FaceBook, and Instagram to show my pictures across, my clients increased!
In 2007, I started Photriya, clicking not just amazing moments. Proudly we say that we were a part of 1900 weddings till date, growing and providing the best to our clients. Today, we are one of the few verified accounts on social media for photographers across India.
List of celebrities worked for, Portfilio
At Photriya, We are also teaching photography courses for students who are now amazing photographers! Their stories delight and warm my heart!
I believed in my dream, they did too and now, we work with gratitude and satisfaction that we capture the best moments.