An alumnus of New York University`s Tisch School of the Arts, Balaji Manohar has worked on Kannada films as an actor and cinematographer. He helmed the camera department for various short films, including Malay Prakash`s The Little Master (2012, Patna, India), Suneeth Kumar Alladis The House (2013, Hyderabad, India), Anuj Gulatis The Manliest Man (2014, Bhopal, India), Shawn Siglers The worth of one word (2015, New York, United States) and Preetam Koilpillais `UMA` (2015, Bengaluru, India).

Balaji was awarded the Kodak Cinematography Gold Award Scholarship for 2014-2015 and the 2013 Best Cinematography Award in the First Run Film Festival for his work in the Malay Prakash`s short film, The Little Master. He worked as a cinematographer in movies like Chronicles of Hari (2016) and Arishadvarga (2018), while his acting credits include Iqbal (2005), Nathicharami (2018), Avane Srimannarayana (2019) and Amruth Apartments (2021).