He graduated with Highest Honours in 1985 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography from The Rochester Institute of Technology, New York, and then moved to the Mecca of photography New York City. It was here that he was exposed to the real world of professional and fine art photography. New York is a city bustling with creative energy, fuelling all those passionate souls who come to this city to explore, learn and re-invent themselves in whatever art form they are pursuing. His exposure in the professional world of photography started with assisting other professional photographers.

Over 2 years he assisted over a 100 different photographers who worked in diverse fields from Fashion, to Still lives, to Food, to Corporate and portraits to large sets and complex thought processes under these master photographers. This taught him to work under strict deadlines and budgets delivering 100% of the time, for the advertising world was very unforgiving for bad work. He assisted prominent New York advertising and Fine art photographers like David Langley, Frank Moscasti, Wayne Eastep, Mitchel Gray, Seltzer, Ric Cohn, Hashi, Chris Callis, and James Wojcik amongst others. These two years in New York gave him a deep seated experience into the real world of advertising photography as well a fantastic learning experience in seeing the masters translate ideas into images.

Many people questioned his moving back to India in 1987, but his answer to that is “because INDIA is home”. He set up his studio in Mumbai in August 1987 and has been freelancing since then.

Campaigns include work done for Hero Honda, Concern India, Channel V, Visa, Tamara Capital, OSL P. Ltd, Directorate of Tourism, Pepsi, Hindustan Lever, Rosemount Computers, Soma Magazine, Bombay Dyeing. He is well known for his detailed and exquisite imagery of jewellery, working with some of the top brands and companies like Sunraj Diamonds, Shrenuj, DIA, Lume’, Kantilal Chotalal, K.P.Sanghavi, Ravindra Heraeus, amongst others.

The work done for these clients encompass a broad spectrum of images from Fashion, Jewellery, to Still life and Fine Art. This is a catalogue of work, which has been most rewarding for him and most representative of his approach to photography.

“The Grand Maestros of Indian Classical Music”

His love for Indian Classical Music led him to many music festivals and from this arose a desire to know the person behind the celestial music. Viren chose the camera to do this probing for him. Photographing 22 of the world famous musicians, the images are in Black & White and Colour which explore the artist’s relationship with his/her guru, their devotion to their art form, their wish to preserve it through training the next generation of musicians and their fulfillment through the concert stage. He is in his own words “grateful to all the musicians who let him into their lives, homes and concert halls” and allow him a glimpse into their very minds.

These images formed the basis for his first self-published book. It was released in October 2016 and is currently available directly as well as on Amazon.in.

The book is 288 pages (Size:12"x12") with 158 colour photographs and 130 Black & White photographs.

This book is an exploration of the creative and soulful lives of some of the greatest contemporary Indian classical musicians. Every image in this book has been shot exclusively by him for this project, and captures their lives both on and off stage.

The quotations are drawn from his personal interviews with each artist, trying to understand the real persona behind the music.

When you flip through the pages, you will get a feel of the essential personalities of these artists as well as the insight that they have garnered from life and from music. Decades of musical genius, collated knowledge, and dedication to their art and craft, have been synthesised in this book.

Solo Exhibition: 1995: “The Grand Maestros of Indian Music” at The Centre for Photography as an Art Form, at CPA’s Piramal Gallery, National Centre for the performing Arts, Mumbai.

Group exhibitions:
1990, 1992, 1994: AIPA of India, AIPA of India, Group exhibition of Fine Art Photographs.
1997: Images, a group exhibition of Fine Art Photographs by The India Picture Agency.
1998 to 2006: His work was showcased in Exhibit ‘A’. Exhibit 'A' is a celebration of personal non-commercial images created by India’s foremost advertising photographers, held by The Photographers Guild of India.
2007: “Bees Saal Baad”- a group exhibition of Fine Art Photographs by The Dinodia Picture Agency, The Point of View Art Gallery, Colaba.
2008: Exhibit ‘A’
2009: “Human condition, Life Goes on- a group exhibition of Fine Art Photographs, at the Canon Image Lounge, Mumbai, from May 2009.
Since 1987, he is a contributing member and photographer of the year for the decade, of DINODIA PICTURE AGENCY, which is the largest Stock Agency in Asia with over 4 million images online.
His work has been profiled in many magazines like Asian Photography, Better Photography, Smart Photography, Saamagaana, The Week and several books and magazine covers. His images have adorned the covers of many music CD’s like “Silkroute”, Ila Arun, Pt.Ravi Shankar’s “Tribute to a Friend”.

He was one of the first photographers in India to use High Resolution Digital photography commercially, as early as 1997 using the Dicomed 4”x5” scanning back.

“A photograph is a unique slice of time-space-event, interacting with the photographer’s consciousness, revealing the wondrous world to the millions who with their unseeing eyes had missed. That is what he offers to the world”.