He was born to a
Hebbar Iyengar family in
Magadi Village (near
Bare, India)
Mysore (now part of
Karnataka State). After an art-enriched childhood wherein he interacted with many stage personalities, B.S. Ranga entered the field of photography. At the age of 17, the self-trained Ranga sent some of his work to be exhibited at the
Royal Salon in London, and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the
Royal Photographic Society. Subsequently, he moved to
Bombay (now
Mumbai) and apprenticed himself to the cameraman and laboratory technician,
Krishna Gopal. B.S. Ranga then embarked on a film career lasting more than five decades, during which he played the roles of cinematographer, director, producer, laboratory owner, studio owner, exhibitor and script-writer, sometimes all at once for one of his productions. His production company, Vikram Productions, gained prominence in the 1960s and 1970s, and won B.S. Ranga many awards, including two President's Awards. The first was for
Tenali Ramakrishna in
Telugu (starring
N.T. Rama Rao and
Akkineni Nageswara Rao), and the second was for
Amarshilpi Jakkanachari, the first colour movie produced in Kannada. ==Filmography==