Caught in the crosshairs

Rifle shooter Gagan Narang graduates from shooting targets to shooting chaatwallahs.

For someone whose first camera was an “accidental” purchase, rifle shooter Gagan Narang has come a long way, as far as photography is concerned. With a coffee-table book and a personal collection of more than 30,000 pictures, Narang has become a prolific shooter — and we are not talking guns here.

The first camera Narang had was a Samsung, which came along with a refrigerator he bought. He says he has always been into gadgets, but that it was not until he took to the sport of shooting and started travelling extensively that he started clicking pictures of his friends with their cameras.

“Then I decided to buy a second-hand Olympus, which was a film camera from Germany, for Rs 8,000 in 2002.” It was only when he compared the quality of pictures that he realised he needed to graduate to better equipment.

Narang says that, although he was not into professional photography, he always wanted to do things “the right way”. So he went ahead and bought himself a Canon 300D in early 2005. “I now have a Canon 40D and will graduate to a full-frame Canon 5D by next year.”

Photography is something which he does in his time off. Being an international sportsman, though, he gets to travel to a lot of exotic locations. Like other amateur photographers among his sports peer group, Narang doesn’t need to plan special trips to follow his passion for photography. “The advantage is that I get to shoot everything around while I am travelling for competitions.”

Photography helps him unwind when he visits scenic locations, and captures them in his own way. It also helps in preserving great memories, especially of the friends who travel with him. “But the sad part is that I rarely get any good pictures of myself, because no one really knows how to use my camera,” he chuckles.

In 2006, the idea of doing a coffee-table book came along when a friend of his was looking at some of the pictures Narang had taken and suggested that he was “pretty good at it”.

Narang says that it wasn’t his idea but his friend’s to come out with the book. The book is also a tribute to the Indian triumph at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne — as Delhi gets ready to host the next edition. For the record, Narang was a quadruple gold medallist at Melbourne and had three Commonwealth records to his name. “There are some great memories of Melbourne for me personally as well as for the country,” he says.

Ever since the camera that came with the fridge, Narang has developed a keen eye for cameras. Recently he picked up a Canon 40D with a 28-135 IS USM lens and hopes to graduate to a full frame 5D. Although he has plans to take up professional photography, he is focusing totally on his career in rifle shooting at the moment. “I barely get the time to click pictures,” he says, “so the thought of doing a professional course is something which I can’t even imagine.”

Narang clicks whatever appeals to him. It could be a man selling chaat in Connaught Place, or the breathtaking locations he visits while travelling for international competitions. And his collection also includes a lot of pictures of his fellow shooters at work. He reasons that the sport and the shooters do not get much exposure as far as photographs are concerned — partly because rifle shooters’ faces are always hidden behind light blinders and the rest of the gear that they wear.

Being an extremely visual person, Narang is always looking into details of the images and the stories they tell. “For me, every picture has to tell a story, and I love capturing happy faces,” he adds. His next step, he says, is to catalogue the 30,000 pictures he has. But for now that will have to wait, as he concentrates on shooting other targets.