Andhra photographer Rukhiya Mohammed on her award-winning photographs of Eastern Ghats

For Rukhiya Mohammed, the mountains of the Eastern Ghats are much than conscionable landscapes. They are surviving ecosystems carrying stories of survival, nonaccomplishment and resilience. The photographer, who was calved and brought up successful Kakinada and is presently moving successful Hyderabad, won the Portfolio class astatine the Nature inFocus Awards 2025 for her photograph communicative ‘Echoes from the Eastern Ghats’. The awards are among India’s starring wildlife and conservation photography platforms, celebrating almighty ocular narratives from crossed the world.

Her winning portfolio documents the gradual translation of the Eastern Ghats nether mounting quality unit — from deforestation and mining to tourism projects and accelerated urbanisation. Shot mostly done aerial perspectives with a drone, the images uncover forests chopped unfastened by roads, hills flattened for operation and shrinking greenish spaces pressed against expanding cities.

Speaking astir the recognition, Rukhiya says, “This task comes from a spot of heavy interest and emotion for the Eastern Ghats. I wanted radical to spot what is happening to these landscapes from a larger perspective.”

She adds, “Photography, for me, is astir documenting alteration and starting conversations astir conservation.” According to the grant citation published by Nature inFocus, her enactment highlights however “human actions specified arsenic deforestation, construction, mining, cultivation and tourism” are reshaping the fragile upland ecosystems.

Rukhiya’s travel with photography began alongside her travels and emotion for the outdoors. Her passionateness for Nature turned her into a traveller, lensman and certified scuba diver. “Growing up successful coastal Andhra Pradesh made maine intimately connected to earthy landscapes,” she says. “Over the years, I realised however rapidly these spaces are disappearing. The camera became my mode of preserving stories and raising awareness.”

Her award-winning enactment besides underlines the ecological value of the Eastern Ghats — 1 of India’s lesser-documented biodiversity hotspots that supports endemic flora, fauna and wood communities. Through sweeping visuals of winding upland roads, railway tracks slicing done forests and large-scale excavations, the portfolio creates a stark opposition betwixt improvement and ecological balance.

Rukhiya believes ocular storytelling has the powerfulness to marque biology issues much accessible. “When radical emotionally link with an image, they statesman to care. That transportation tin animate work and action,” she says.