Imageine: Vantage point

As a regular combat officer, I was trained for warfighting, leadership, and operations. But over the years, one skill — photography — began to define my service in an entirely unexpected way. What started as a hobby became a calling. The Indian Navy was the first to recognise this, and I soon found myself photographing not just for the Navy, but for the Army, the Air Force, and the paramilitary forces of India.

For over three decades, I served in uniform — as a soldier, and as a visual chronicler of the Indian Armed Forces. I’ve flown in most of the combat aircraft operated by the Navy and the IAF. I’ve stood at the forecastle of warships during rough seas, camera in hand, drenched by waves, holding steady for that perfect frame. I’ve been burnt by the heat of afterburners while capturing fighters taking off at full thrust. I’ve hung out of helicopters to document fleet manoeuvres, with one hand on the airframe and the other on the shutter. I was often reprimanded by fleet commanders for taking risks they deemed excessive — but not once did they hold me back. I was engulfed by passion.

I rarely thought of personal safety. I just chased the frame because I believed in what it could do. I wasn’t there to take pretty pictures. I was there to document the spirit of the Indian Armed Forces, to capture moments that would otherwise go unseen. Moments of courage, fatigue, precision, tension, humanity — and sometimes, triumph.

Even today, long after I stepped away from uniformed service, the camera remains close. The battlefield may have changed, but my passion for photography hasn’t. I continue to seek out the unseen, the remote, the real — documenting lives, landscapes, and cultures across India with the same dedication and love that once took me to the decks of warships and the cockpits of fighters. This was never a career. It was never a designation. It was a way of life.

— Capt Navtej Singh is a retired Naval officer & photographer

(Column curated by Aditya Arya, director of Museo Camera, Gurugram)