Photography

Photo-essay: Shadows on the Grass

Photo-essay: Shadows on the Grass

There is one group of plants, which supports the largest masses of wildlife in the world and also supports most of our human populations: grasses. This remarkable plant group covers a fourth of all the land on the earth. Almost 70% of our daily diet is derived from grasses. Rice, wheat, maize, barley, are all species of grass which have been cultivated since the advent of agriculture and selectively bred over the last 10000 years by humans. Today, grasslands are under assault. They are among the most endangered natural habitats on earth and India is just about holding on to…

Best of 2011 in photographs

Best of 2011 in photographs

The year 2011 has been one crazy ride. I ended up spending most of the time in the field – photographing and filming across India, Africa and southeast Asia. This also explains the lack of updates on my journal the last few months. Below is the collection of some of my favourite photographs from the field. The year started with a long filming assignment starting in Rajasthan and then Kutch in Gujarat. After filming there, we moved to Tadoba Andheri Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, where we spent 2 months filming tigers. Then again back to Gujarat to film lions in…

Light painting a Giant of Borneo

Light painting a Giant of Borneo

Its not the orangutans or the colorful diversity of birds, neither is it the primates nor the hornbills. Its the giant trees that take your breath away in Borneo. You feel as if all the trees that you have seen in your life were Lilliputians and now you have come and bumped into Gulliver himself. These trees are spectacular. One has to work really hard to see the whole tree. From the ground, the top of the tree either disappears into the canopy or into the mist, either way, the only part of the tree that you will ever get…

When a portrait is not just a portrait

When a portrait is not just a portrait

As a photojournalist, when do you capture a scene the way it is vs capturing it as the way you think it is. Let me explain Last evening, I was driving in the buffer area of TATR and came across two women collecting Tendu leaves (leaves of Tendu are used to make indian cigarettes) in the forest. I stopped to take their photos. One of the lady’s name was Shakshi and I was trying to take her portrait with the leaves. Obviously since it was a stranger, who suddenly landed up, she was stiff and expression-less. I asked my guide…

Tigers in Tadoba

Today marks a month since we have been filming in Tadoba Andheri Tiger Reserve in Central India. Filming has been relatively slow, but as the summer picks up, we are hoping the sightings of wildlife would too. The colors of the forests during summer in unbelievable.

Revenge of the Hyena

Revenge of the Hyena

We are currently in the grasslands of Velavadar National Park filming for Wild India. We have been getting good shots of the blackbucks lekking and an amazing array of other animals. From wolves, hyenas, jackals, jungle cats to nilgais. We have been waiting at a hyena den the last few days but have not managed to see it at all. Yesterday, while driving around, I saw one hyena in a new area in the grasslands. Allah Rakha (our amazing guide) and I decided to investigate and searched around the area in the evening. We came across a den in the…

Narcondam article in Outlook traveller

Sorry about the awful silence on the blog. I’m out in the field this whole month and had to work in really tough conditions in Assam, Rajasthan and Kerala. Meanwhile, this months issue of Outlook Traveller carried the article on my Narcondam Island expedition that I did earlier this year. You can download the pdf of the article here. I really like how Outlook/Geo does the layout of the images with text and captions.

Expedition Narcondam : The Island

Read previously: Expedition Narcondam : Part 1 The night came in early and soon we were sailing in almost total darkness, but under the canopy of a million stars–the milky way above us. We had started early that morning on a small, private, sail boat and still were not in sight of our destination. As I settled down on the deck for the night, I could not help but think about Charles Darwin and his Voyage of the Beagle. Close to 200 years ago, Darwin with his crew went around the world in HMS Beagle and in his trip to…

Expedition Narcondam : Dolphins

When I started bird watching many years ago, one of the curious birds that I read about was the Narcondam hornbill. Why the name? Well it turns out, this hornbill is endemic to this small little 6.8 sq km extinct volcanic island named Narcondam island between Andaman islands and Burma. Can you imagine? The whole species of a big bird like the hornbill (some people even call it a honorary mammal) is found in this tiny little island. Since then, the goal was set. Visiting this island and exploring this went into my bucket list. It took more than 5…

Tigers in BR hills

One of the exciting things about wildlife is the unpredictability. When you least expect it, you are rewarded by an amazing wildlife sighting. Yesterday, along with two of my friends, I had been to BR hills. We left in the morning, reached BR hills by lunch time, finished some work and went to K-gudi (the tourism zone of BR hills) and decided to go on the evening safari. Two weeks ago, a mother tiger with 4 cubs were sighted near a water hole and we decided to drive straight to the place and wait there. As soon as we landed…

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