209 pages · 52 featured creators · Top 100 Finalists of 5 awards · Vol. 8
From the Editor’s Desk
Dear Reader,
Some photographs are made in a fraction of a second; most of the ones in this volume took years to arrive. With Patience & Pulse (Vol. 8), we set out to honour both halves of the craft: the patience to wait — in a hide, on a riverbank, through eleven attempts at one tiger — and the pulse that keeps a creator there, from a drum kit to a veena to a microphone.
This issue brings together 52 creators from photography, music, dance, travel and writing. A rapper from Dadar whose track became his name. An eye surgeon who divides his week between the operating theatre and a veena. A drone photographer who finds his compositions on satellite imagery before he ever flies. Many work with nothing more than a phone; some have spent four decades in India’s forests. What unites them is the same quiet discipline: they keep looking, and listening, until the frame or the note is right.
We hope these pages give you what they gave us: a little more patience, and a little more pulse. Thank you for being part of a community that keeps showing up for real creators.
Ajeet Kumar Meena, Founder & Editor · Team WallMag
What’s Inside?
At the heart of this volume are in-depth conversations with 52 creators across photography, music, dance, travel and writing — from four-decade wildlife veterans to photographers who have only ever used a phone. Here they are, in the order they appear:
- Kowshik Saha (@kowshikrsaha) — Ashes in My Mouth: A producer building a darker, cinematic world where the emotion always comes first and the genre only follows.
- Subhash Saraff (@photographybysubhash) — Dust & Light: An architect who learned to wait — on backlight and the unrepeatable moment, from an elephant family in the morning dust.
- Gidel Jacob (@gideljacob) — A Mark on the Soul: The Hotel California solo that gave him chills, a headless Kiesel people mistake for a violin, and hours that disappear when he plays.
- Ayusman Pradhan (@ayusman.pradhan.018) — My Will to Click: Everything here was made on an Android phone, built on one belief: it is the eye, not the equipment, that makes the photograph.
- Naresh Patnaik VNP (@naresh_patnaik_vnp) — Observe First, Shoot Second: Technology is the profession, photography the passion — on the birds that teach you to wait and a temple built like a peacock’s feather.
- Sparsh Sangam (@sparsh_sangam) — On Stage at Twelve: His mother danced Bihu and his father has played for twenty-five years; at around twelve he took a stage beside his dad in Delhi.
- Kiran Dey (@wildframevoyager) — The Eleventh Attempt: Two safaris in 2024 and a phone became a three-season pursuit of Kanha’s Neela Naala — on the eleventh attempt.
- Ommy Khan (@ommy_khan) — The Voice of the Nation: “Desh Ki Awaaz” grew, completely organically, past 200 million views — and is now what people call the Dadar rapper.
- Anshul Mittal (@anshulmittal232) — His Father’s Yashica: Born in Udaipur the year his father carried a Yashica home — now chasing the quiet soul of a single frame.
- Dr. Chatti Ramakrishna (@rama.krishna.3382) — The Veena Chose Me: An eye surgeon by profession, he divides his week between the operating theatre and a carved Thanjavur veena.
- Swaroop Panchangam (@swarspective) — The Tiger at the Pond: In Panna, the driver offered the tiger in the bush or the walk to the water. He chose the pond — and waited.
- Manish Kumar Rai — Stories Without Words: A film song on Chitrahaar stopped him at seven; three classical forms later, he teaches from an online courtyard.
- Nikita Malla (@evadi.gola_vadidi) — Quiet Friction: At dawn in small-town Andhra, a Pixel 7 and the quiet friction of a waking street, rendered in black and white.
- Penumaka Bindu (@penumakabindu06) — My Heart Stopped: A point-and-shoot gifted when her first son was born became a practice — now on a phone, in soft light, nobody posed.
- Lakshay Chandna (@throughlakshay) — My Dadu’s Minolta: A boatman on the Yamuna, sparks in Susgaon, and a roll of film shot through his late grandfather’s camera in Spiti.
- Joydeep Bhattacharjee (@jburbancruiser) — The Banker’s Riyaz: A banker by profession, a percussionist by purpose — back behind the kit after twenty years away from music.
- Akshay Prakash Kanade (@the_candyology) — Roads Became Patterns: He finds his compositions on satellite imagery before the drone unfolds — and placed third at the WallMag Drone Photography Awards.
- Pushpinder Singh (@pushpinder.singh.9085790) — Jheel Si Aankhein: Sixteen years from Mumbai’s Priya Studio to Kolkata’s Studio World, chasing the exact expression a song asks for.
- Krishnachura Das (@kkolkata_lens) — Nothing Extraordinary: The unremarkable hours of Kolkata — a woman under an umbrella, a man beside a bundle — kept as the moments worth keeping.
- Vandana Panchal (@thevandana) — Before the Shutter: From a background in IT to portraiture, and why the real work happens before she presses the shutter.
- Anjali Manoharan (@itss_anj_ali) — On the Making of Pieces: From Bangalore open mics to Chennai, a season of loss turned into “Pieces” and a four-song debut EP.
- Kanishka Singh (@kanishksingh937) — A Sunflower at Sunrise: From a journalism diploma in 2012 to Atlanta’s nature trails and the fog over the Golden Gate.
- Diptarko Bandyopadhyaya (@diptarkob) — My Friendly Neighbours: A teenage naturalist from the IIT Bombay campus, documenting the wildlife in our balconies, lakes and gardens.
- Dev Vikram Upaadhyay (@devvikram_photography) — Nothing Performs for You: Ten hours a day in the field with an RF 200–800mm on his shoulder, waiting on animals that perform for no one.
- Muskan Verma — The Gray Memoir: Self-taught on a mobile phone, she photographs what the rest of us walk past: chai poured from a height, birds on a wire.
- Prince Bajpai (@princebajpaii) — Profit from the Pain: From Kanpur to Delhi, a self-taught rapper-producer on his mixtape and the track that took runner-up at the WallMag Rap Awards.
- Kiran L (@kiran.l.reddy) — Before the World Wakes: It began with a Kerala sunset and a phone pulled out on instinct.
- Sarfaraz Ahmed (@pets_r_us_nagpur) — On His Terms: From a first safari at Kanha in 1981 to four decades tracking leopards and tigers across India’s forests.
- Ashwini (@ashwwinie) — My Father’s Salangai: Her grandfather became her guru when she was nine; the ankle bells she still ties on were her father’s.
- Mohit Asrani — The Colours of Rahad: From Nashik’s Rangpanchami colour to the walking faith of the Pandharpur Wari, chasing the unstaged frame.
- Caleb Jacob (@calebjacobmusic) — Mimicry to Melody: From impressions to playback in Tamil and Telugu cinema, and now a sound of his own in indie Tamil R&B.
- Lalima Bose (@be__lali) — A Way of Noticing: A heron she has sat with for two years, a Dal Lake boat that had to be monochrome, and the paddy fields on the road to Gurez.
- Niranjan Sharma (@niranjansharma.9) — A Track Called Third-Eye: NSyncStudios’ producer-editor on the first music that felt truly his, and why nothing works without sync.
- Subhendra Mohan Ray (@camera_ray) — Mood, Movement, Mystery: An iPhone, an open road and an eye that refuses to pick a lane — from abstract still lifes to wildlife.
- R. Anantha Murthy (@murthyanantha) — When the Clouds Opened: From an Indian Roller on a Hesarghatta anthill to a tusker in Amboseli the morning the clouds opened.
- Rashmi Nayak S (@humble_pixels_) — Humble Pixels: She has never owned a professional camera: “I don’t capture what I see; I capture what I feel.”
- Deepak Beatz (@__deepak_beatz__) — Poems into Beats: He wrote poetry before he wrote songs; then a home computer turned one poem into a track.
- Soumyaranjan Maharana (@sawmyaranjan) — Every Slice of Life: From editing on a mobile phone to moving freely between street, fashion, wildlife and wedding frames.
- Sreejata Roy (@avaray101) — When Words Fail: A Kolkata life made across painting, photography and writing — from a prizewinning poem to paintings that arrived as visions.
- Rajat Ranjan Priyadarshi (@sailens1111) — Sun in a Bottle: A phone became a way of seeing: changing skies, quiet landscapes and the feeling of a fleeting moment.
- Dr. Satyabrata Maiti — To the Unreachable: A travelogue writer drawn to the hard-to-reach — ancient temples in undisturbed nature, Himalayan routes closed by rain.
- Sudip Roy (@sudipdotroy) — Fraction of a Second: Wildlife photography as being present for moments that can never be recreated.
- Dr. Gunjan Rathore (@gunjanchampawatphotography) — Look Up, Slow Down: Her first photograph was an orange insect on a green stem in a college garden — curiosity before craft.
- Neil Umwi (@neil_umwi) — Simple & Honest: From the church choirs of Shillong to country music’s plain-spoken songs of life, love and heartbreak.
- Kartikeya Mishra — The Ganga Aarti: From birds on his college campus to a dark Varanasi riverbank where the diyas lined up exactly as he wanted.
- Parag Kailas Prajapati (@parag_prajapati1) — The Emotion of the Forest: He went into the forest first and found the camera second — and brought back a mother carrying her cub through Melghat’s grass.
- FliqaIndia (@fliqaindia) — Beyond the Camera: Founder Souvik Jana on building a creative ecosystem in Kolkata where talent, technology and opportunity meet.
- Abhimanyu Sharma (@abhi.jxl) — Beneath Howrah Bridge: From Kumartuli’s idol-makers to the flower market beneath Howrah Bridge, and a quieter world in black and white.
- Neena Nissar (@fuzzynraw) — Movement in Stillness: Working on nothing but an iPhone 13, she bends blur, shutter and light to hold motion inside a fleeting second.
- Vihaan Bhalotia (@vihaanbhalotia) — A Hand’s Length: A self-described beginner turning his Canon on owls in Goa and a spider a hand’s length away.
- Shekhar Bopardikar (@bshekhar22) — The Eleventh Kingfisher: From a borrowed box camera to twenty-three safaris trailing a single tigress’s bloodline — four decades in India’s wild.
- Mayank Jeshani (@shots_bymj) — Frames That Feel: His first frames were of Bappa’s arrival in Vadodara, made with a camera he almost left behind.
The Finalists’ Honour Roll
This volume also carries something we promised every Top 100 finalist of the WallMag Awards 2026 whose winners were announced since our last issue: their name in the magazine. At the back of the issue you will find the Top 100 Finalists of each of these five awards:
- Drone Photography Awards 2026 — Top 100 Finalists
- PhotoJournalism Photography Awards 2026 — Top 100 Finalists
- Travel Photography Awards 2026 — Top 100 Finalists
- Nature Photography Awards 2026 — Top 100 Finalists
- Musician of the Year Awards 2026 — Top 100 Finalists
If you were named a finalist, your name is in these pages.
209 pages · 52 featured creators · Top 100 Finalists of 5 awards · Vol. 8
A Platform for Fresh Talent
At WallMag, we believe talent is everywhere — in small towns and big cities, on flagship cameras and borrowed phones alike. Our commitment has always been to open the door for new and emerging creators, to give their work the audience it deserves, and to remind every dreamer that their vision matters.
If these stories move you, keep looking, keep creating — and when you are ready, share your work with us at join.wallmag.io/add-samples. Every feature begins with a conversation.
Front & Back Covers
