An English teacher by profession and a photographer by passion. Meet Calcuttan Somenath Mukhopadhyay, who beat 11,019 entrants to emerge as winner of the Photo of the Year contest on fotoflock.com, a year-old website dedicated to all things photography.

The 41-year-old, who teaches at Uttarpara Government School, sneaks out on weekends to places near and far to capture “moments and people”. “My tryst with the camera began when I was in college. I borrowed a camera from my friend and became a wedding photographer for extra pocket money. I did it as a hobby till I realised that I was quite good at it!” he smiles.

From an Agfa Click-III to a Pentax K1000, the man with a keen eye has now graduated to a Nikon D70s and a Canon 5D Mark II. Somenath’s winning photograph shows a fisherman casting his net into the Damodar river, green with algae (picture above). “It was taken in November 2008 when I had gone for a whole day’s shoot to Burdwan. I stood on a bridge and waited for the fisherman till he was almost under my feet. Buses were moving to and fro on the bridge and my hand was unsteady. I found it difficult to adjust the camera because it was shaking. But I caught the moment when he threw his net in the green river,” he explains. His photograph was selected by a panel comprising ace lensmen Dabboo Ratnani, Vikram Bawa and Fawzan Husain because of its “unique angle and timing”.

Winning the fotoflock.com contest is not Somenath’s first snap at success; he won the CGAP Microfinance Photo Contest and Sony World Photography Awards last year as well. A village girl selling radishes at the market, a woman in the Sunderbans lighting a lamp, a tribal playing a near-extinct instrument called the bonam while his grandson listens intently... Somenath’s camera encompasses people, environment, travel, fairs and festivals.

His advice for the budding photographer? “We have two lenses — one is the camera, and the other is one’s own eye. Feel the light, the sense and the story. Observe people and their lives and you will find stories in between that make lovely moments,” he says.