I was awestruck and excited to look at the first DSLR camera brought by my father eight years back. Till that point of time I knew of cameras which were one compact piece. I was amused looking at a camera which came in unassembled pieces of a body and lens. It was a very precious unit at home and me and my brother would only get to see that and not touch it.
Photography became one of the important subjects of discussion at dinner tables and vacations in next two years. The camera gear has also completely changed, and we had one wardrobe converted for camera gear and camouflage fatigues.
Simple destination vacations turned into birding trips and visits to wildlife parks to take images of birds and animals. My life transformed the day my father brought the book “Birds of Indian Sub-Continent” by Richard Grimmet, Caron Inskipp and Tim Inskipp.
I used to look forward for the weekends where my father used to wake up much before sunrise, pick up his camera gear and jump into the car to go to a birding point. I waited for him to call me and the moment I heard him calling me I used to run to the car with the reference book. My job on the field was to identify the species of resident and migrant birds. Best part was to tick off birds in the book and my ambition was to tick as many birds as I can. For me initially all that mattered was the count. Also the colors and creativity of nature intrigued me a lot, I always wondered how those hornbills had those beautiful large colorful beaks, how those small fly catchers were filled with so many colors, the smartness of pelicans skimming the surface of the lake to gather water and catch fish to avoid crocodiles, how a small tailor bird’s call was louder than many bigger birds, how could sunbirds flap wings at the speed to hover near a flower for nectar, how a pied kingfisher could do straight vertical dive from 20- 30 feet height with precision and capture the fish, and finally how a Steppe Eagle could see a hare or a mouse from few hundreds of feet away from ground and fly down in a flash to catch the prey.
I used to think and dream about them a lot. This curiosity used to make me look forward for the weekends, help my father in keeping the gear and books ready for next day morning. I would never be able to sleep on Friday nights imagining what I would get to see the next day morning. I held the camera only after one year of only birding, I felt like Rambo when I first held the camera with a big lens and tripod in my hand. I was sent on a children’s photo tour to Kabini forest 250 kms away from Bangalore and was taught the basics of photography by the professionals. From observing and questioning my father, I had gathered theoretical insights on photography and hence I could pick up the practical execution in the field much faster.
From the birding trips I also learnt how to approach a bird without disturbing it, and how to adjust myself to the right side of the light to get good images. First, I was told that bird and wildlife photographers use aperture priority mode as a standard to click images. Also, there are certain rules to be followed; the eye has to be sharp, rule of thirds is a must and never shoot against the light.
Few days into clicking we travelled to Kaziranga National Park, Assam, India, known for endangered One-Horned Rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) and lot of birds. I was in a watch tower clicking two Rhinos, something disturbed them, and they started to charge a vehicle. As the light was low, shutter speed dropped and inadvertently I got some panning images. I saw the images and I was very excited about clicking something different. When same action repeated after a few minutes I not only panned but also shook the camera gently during those few seconds. The image I clicked made it to the SemiFinals of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year 11-14 years category that year.
This opened up a new world to me, that is in the world of creativity and imagination you cannot be bound by structured rules. It is all about how deep and wide one can imagine and create. Unlike arts like painting or coloring in photography and in particular wildlife photography opportunities came and go in split seconds. A cheetah charging a hare can start and finish in less than 60 seconds, the golden light of sunset lasts only for few minutes, one needs to wait for hours, days and sometime months or years to get to see the action in the way they perceived in their imagination and these moments can be only for few seconds rendering very few images.
In the subsequent two years I tried to make only creative images of wildlife & nature such as panning images, zoom bursts and images playing with the light. I thought by following the standard template of rules I am clicking the same images again and again and also the very same images that others have already clicked.
Next break-through for me was in Amboseli National Park, There were three cheetah cubs playing and in a flash they started charging at a hare, in that moment I chose to shift to shutter priority and pan the chase, again the image reached the Semi-Finals of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year. This image made me believe that my perseverance on making creative images is getting me results. I realized I was getting monotonous restricting myself to panning, silhouettes and zoom burst images. I thought I had to take it to the next level. After going through a lot of material on creative photography. I realized the next item for me is to practice multiple exposure images.
I had the opportunity to go to Masai Mara in 2017. One evening when we were getting back from the game drive, we saw a lone impala on the horizon against the sunset with scattered clouds. I seized the moment and thought that the moment was right to execute what I was dreaming of for the past two years, make a multiple exposure of the silhouette and make it bit more technical by using the in-camera settings of multiple exposure blending. Yes, I got that right, bang on. This reminds me of the quote by Arthur Koestler “the principle mark of genius is not perfection but originality, the opening of new frontiers”.
For me originality is the key as anything original is transformational and can inspire others, to be original one needs to be thorough in the subject and be creative and imaginative to think out of the box.
This image made me one of the winners of Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2018 by Natural History Museum and appreciated by the renowned and greatest wildlife photographers in the World. Apart from this my image was considered as Remarkable Art work in SIPA (Siena International Photo Award) and also a winner of the Digital Photographer of the Year 2018 -Young Wildlife Category.
Over these years I believed and practiced principles of, Have a BHAG, get the basics right, think out of the box, Practice to perfection, Perseverance till accomplished.
