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Local veterinarian combines surgeon’s eye with photographer’s technique

Kanwarjit Singh Boparai is a veterinarian at VCA Old River Animal Hospital on 11th Street. He is also a fine-art photographer, with subjects varying from pets to landscapes and still-life artwork. Glenn Moore/Our Town

The artistry of a precision caliper, a stethoscope or latex gloves might elude the average viewer.

But Tracy veterinarian Kanwarjit Singh Boparai has the eyes of both artist and healer. He uses his camera to bridge those two roles.

“I try to just capture the things that I really see,” he said. “It’s never really the same, but it’s a part.”

Some of the first things the Old River Animal Hospital vet captured with his digital third eye were before-and-after photos of his patients — dogs that’d had eye surgery, cats after jaw surgery, any unusual case that passed across his operating table.

Scenes of Boparai’s trips also decorate the clinic’s walls, to his co-workers’ delight.

An avid hiker, Boparai visits some of the nation’s most photogenic landscapes — the Grand Canyon, Yosemite National Park, the California coast.

The photographic proof of his travels is there for all pet patients, their owners and vet staffers to see.

His art is a soothing presence in the 11th Street animal clinic, co-workers say.

“They’re certainly a topic of conversation,” said hospital receptionist Kati Anaya, pointing to a photo of cat eyes hung on the waiting room wall. “They’re so serene, so beautiful.”

And they’re increasingly ubiquitous.

Boparai recently spotted a shot he took of a golden retriever wearing a stethoscope on a VCA Old River brochure. Apparently, someone up at corporate ordered one of the vet’s many stock photos.

He has sold others to Forbes.com, Marie Claire and Conde Nast Traveler, and some for a two-page spread in Popular Hot Rodding magazine.

“I’ll see a photo I took sometimes in a textbook or a brochure,” he said. “It is interesting to realize how many of mine are out there.”

• This week’s interviewer was Tracy Press reporter Jennifer Wadsworth. To reach her, call 830-4225 or e-mail her at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it