Chirag Upreti resides in Riverdale, NYC.
Personal: Chirag was born and raised in the picturesque Himalayan town of Nainital in India. While others explored its enchanting beauty during the day, Chirag was fascinated by the exquisiteness of its sky during the night. The thought, that under the canvas of the stars we find our place in the realm of the universe laid the foundation for his passion as a night sky photographer. This vision, underlying philosophy and required technical skillset to capture his interpretation of the world were vastly inspired by photojournalists Stan Honda and Babak Tafreshi.
Chirag has a PhD in neurobiology from New York Medical College and worked with Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel on the molecular mechanism of learning and memory at Columbia University, NYC for his postdoctoral research. Currently his research work focuses on attention and memory deficits associated with Schizophrenia at Columbia University.
Philosophy: Light pollution is a major environmental and health problem and has been associated directly or indirectly with coronary heart disease , breast cancer risk, depression, anxiety, insomnia and other health disorders in humans. Potential changes in foraging, navigating and reproductive behavior in wildlife species have also been reported. The night sky has been a part of our primitive history; not only was it woven into human folklore but it was also used to navigate the land and the seas, predict changes in seasons and determine the time for harvest. However, the night sky is slowly being lost to the ever-increasing sky glow caused by artificial light pollution. It is now estimated that more than 60 percent of the world population has not seen the Milky Way. This is a huge loss to human culture. Through his images, Chirag attempts to reconnect us with the night sky and become part of the unique natural heritage that we all share. In the pursuit to document these nightscapes, Chirag has trekked in the high-altitude desert landscapes of Leh and Ladakh, chased total solar eclipses in Latin America and the American Mid-west, photographed the northern lights in Iceland and travelled to the world’s largest single aperture telescope located in the Canary Islands.
Professional Recognition: His photographs have appeared in many prestigious publications. His lunar eclipse photography, Blood Moon Monster was NASA’s Astronomy Picture Of the Day (APOD) on June 4th, 2021.
His image Sol and the Statue of Liberty was Astronomy magazine’s Picture of the Day . Additionally he has multiple magazine prints in Astronomy magazine (July 2018, October 2018, December 2018, March 2019, July 2019, November 2019, February 2020), counted amongst the world’s most popular and best-selling astronomy magazines. The online gallery of Sky and Telescope (owned by the American Astronomical Society) another premier astronomy magazine has images Lunar Letters , Diamond ring on the black sun, International Space Station transit over Grand Teton National Park, Coalsack and the Southern Cross and Sunset of a crescent sun by Chirag.
His image of a crescent moonset in NYC was published in the National Geographic Your Shot story ‘Places We Love’. His work has also been featured on the home page of Spaceweather.com, a popular website for astronomers and astrophotographers. He also has multiple images featured as Earthsky.org’s Todays Image (January 6, 2017: Bokeh effect in Orion; January 13, 2017: First full moon of 2017; July 5, 2017: Scorpion rising; July 27, 2017: Venus and the Pleiades before dawn; March 4, 2018: Early morning Milky Way).
On Space.com his images featured as Image of the Day include Thursday, July 6, 2017: Reflection of the Milky Way and August 15, 2019 : ‘Diamond Ring’ Over Argentina. The website Space.com has also featured two stories on images from Chirag. The first was “Milky Way Glimmers Over Montauk Lighthouse in Sparkling Beach View,” on his image of the rising Milky Way from this historic landmark. The second was “Earth’s Shadow and the ‘Belt of Venus’ Arc Over La Palma in a Scenic Panorama.” His photographs (Reflection of the Milky Way and Thunder moon in NYC) were published by Space.com in their Top 100 images for 2017 and Top 100 images for 2018 (Milky Way over Montauk Point Lighthouse). For 100 Best Space Photos of 2019, he had two images publised recently (‘Diamond Ring’ Over Argentina and ‘Earth’s Shadow and the ‘Belt of Venus’ Arc Over La Palma in a Scenic Panorama’).
Chirag is also a guest contributor to The World At Night (TWAN). This organization “is a bridge between art, humanity, and science” founded and operated by National Geographic photographer Babak Tafreshi. Chirag is a member of the International Dark Sky Association and the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York, where he previously served as Image Editor for their monthly journal Eyepiece.
On Instagram (@chiragupreti, previously @tinchu_chi) his prominent features are by NBC New York, The World At Night (TWAN), Sky and Telescope Magazine, Sony Images, Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty National Park Services, Space.com, Earthskyscience (Earthsky.org), YourESA (European Space Agency’s photo community) and PhotoPills (popular app to plan night shots). His interview with Printique (formerly Adoramapix) can be found here.
Exhibits: From February 16th -18th 2019 his photographs were part of the exhibition Anubhuti, hosted by Incredible Art & Culture Foundation (IAC) at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, Delhi, India. The event showcased the night sky work alongside ‘Padma Shri’ awardees Basanti Devi Bisht, Preetam Bhartwan and Anup Sah. Padma Shri is one of the highest civilian honors given by the President of India to people for distinguished service in their field.
His second exhibition was Utsav, hosted at the All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society from June 7th-13th 2019.
For one on one or group workshops in NYC please email chiragupreti@gmail.com
Photo Credit: Girja Pandey