Nature Lyrics - Creative and Artistic Nature Photography

The train running 2 hours behind schedule was probably cruising at 120km/hr. Sitting beside a window I was trying to visualize some images of frogs to be made at Katthalekana. When Dr Gururaja of Indian Institute Science, Bangalore who is an amphibian scientist informed me of his week long research trip to Katthalekana, a dense jungle in the Western Ghats I readily agreed to join him for couple of days. In Kannada language Katthale means darkness, night and Kana means forest. As the name suggests this place is a scary dense jungle - The image above shows Katthalekana forest range, more about that in a minute.

Reached Sagar around 11:30PM and next day early morning headed towards Jog where Dr Gururaja and his team (Sheshadri KS, Amit and Srikanth) were camping. Reached Jog around 9am and waited for an hour for Dr Gururaja and his team to arrive from their field work. Though I had exchanged a few notes earlier I had not met Dr Gururaja till then. Around 10:30am Dr Gururaja along with his team returned after surveying a 30km stretch of road for frog kills !! which was interesting to me. For next one hour I had an enlightening discussion with passionate and energetic Dr Guraraja about their previous day work at Katthalekana. He showed me some amazing videos of behaviours of some endemic frogs of this region. For Dr Gururaja day starts at night !! The team took rest till around 4pm (they worked till 2am previous day at jungles!) and got ready for heading towards Katthalekana. I joined them too. We reached Katthalekana around 5:30pm. Dr Gururaja gave me a little bit of coconut oil and snuff powder. I was supposed a make a paste and apply it to legs which acts as leach deterrent. Then Dr Gururaja took us inside the Katthalekana jungles. Though I was born and brought-up near Western Ghats jungles Katthalekana appeared unique even for me. 10 meters off the road along a little foot path leading us inside the jungle was barely visible at 5:30pm. The rain was pouring, plenty of leaches waiting to climb up legs along the path, our heads and necks were only a few inches away from Bamboo pit vipers that may be resting on the foliage along the paths. We were told Katthalekana is the place where all King Cobras caught in the nearby villages are released into Jungles. Dr Gururaj told me “if we think of all those things will can’t do our field work !” I have agreed with him since I knew I will there only for one more day For next half an hour Dr Gururaja led us inside the jungle in a pouring rain. We crossed the same winding stream down hill 3 times. In just a matter of 20 minutes there were flash floods in the stream. I fell down once while crossing the stream - nothing happened fortunately and I was not carrying my camera. Amit, who is part of Dr Gururaja’s team fell down and his footwear and umbrella got washed away in the floods. After about 30min of walk into jungles we stopped at a place in the jungle where Dr Gururaja showed us a tree (Semicarpus kathlekanensis or Myristica…) which stands as a proof to say millions of years back African and Indian plates where together. I understand scientists came to this conclusion since the same tree is found today in Africa too.

We spent next couple of hours at another small stream where Dr Gururaja and his team were studying a group of endemic frogs. It was around 8pm, amidst myriad of calls of different creatures of the jungle Dr Gururaja helped us isolate a few calls and associate names of a few frogs with those. Following those frog calls he would go inside some bushes and show us those amazing frogs!! His ability to find them in jungles is amazing ! I spent an hour trying to make a few images of those beautiful frogs. In pouring rain, amidst blood sucking leaches all around and with all kind of poisonous snakes and fear of stepping on them making images of frogs was not easy to say the least. I used a 3W Maglite to make most of my images and some with flash too (with limited success though). Dr Gururaja, Sheshadri and Amit helped me while making images of these frogs. At around 9pm we decided to head back to the camp for dinner. We started back again around 9:30pm and returned back to Katthalekana jungles. This time I decided not to make images since I felt I may be disturbing their field work and I was also tired. I simply decided to see what they do. They were meticulously recording frogs’ courtship behaviours etc. At around 12am Dr Gururaja and his team decided to return back to the camp. We came back and took rest. Next day morning at 6am Dr Gururaja and his team went again for another round of road kill survey. I decided to take some more rest at camp. Got up around 7:30am and went around the camp with my macro lens to make a few images.

Next day around 2:30pm the plan was to visit Muppane and then goto Katthalekan again. I decided to do some more macro work and skip Muppane. Around 3:30am I checked out from the camp and headed towards Katthalekana. Plan was to join Dr Gururaja’s team at a place named Mavinagundi about 10km before Katthalekana. I stopped and waited near Mavinagundi for Dr Gururaja and his team to arrive. While waiting for Dr Gururaja a person came near by my car and asked “are you Ganesh” ? I said “yes I am” Then he introduced himself as Mr Ashok T Hegde ! We both are members of a nature photo forum (INW) and had exchanged a few notes earlier !! The Internet has made this world very small. Then Ashok joined us too to Katthalekana !! Previous day Dr Gururaja had promised me to show a newly discovered species of frog named Neelanethrus having beautiful blue eyes (above images - you may click on them to see them larger). We entered jungles again in pouring rain around 7pm. After listening to myriads of calls in the jungle at last the Dr Gururaj and his team found a frog in some thick bushes. “You drank enough, I will take you out now” I heard Dr Gururaja saying. He was removing leaches from his legs!! Blood was oozing out from multiple places from his legs!! I did not know what to say. Amit in Dr Gururaja’s team also found another species of frog. I made some images of these two beautiful frogs. Around 9pm we decided to return. Dr Gururaja and his team went towards Kumta, I returned back with Ashok. Stopped at Mavinagundi, had a nice dinner at Ashok’s house and returned back to Sagar around 11pm.

Fantastic experience to say the least !! Thanks a million to Dr Gururaja and his team - Sheshadri, Amit and Srikanth. Hats off to them - I have not seen another team as daring, as energetic and as passionate.

This trip will stay in my memory for years to come for sure!!

Thanks a lot to Vijay Mohan Raj for his support during the trip. Without his help I would not have made this trip.

Thanks to Ashok T Hegde for his help and a nice dinner! Anyone going to Katthalekana or Jog may get in touch with Ashok for valuable information about this amazing place.

Thanks to forest department person who joined us to Katthalekana - too bad, I forgot his name

For more information about Dr Gururaja and his research work visit this link.

You may click on images of frogs above to see them in larger size. You can find a few more images I made at Katthalekana here. I may add some more images in a few days. If anyone is interested in knowing more about my technique of using torch lights for macro photography please visit this link.

Thats all for now about Katthalekana trip!!

Monsoon rains has started in this part of the world where I live. During monsoon months some of us have made it a habit to pack all of our gear in a air tight bag stuffed with silica gel packets for next couple of months

One of my recently learned lesson is best light for nature photography is bad light!! I realized the bad light offers us so many unique perspectives. Made this above image today at Ramanagar (click on the image to see it better in higher resolution). I felt background white cloud was perfect for what I wanted to create in this image.

The below image of a flower demonstrates the other lesson I have learnt recently - if we can control dominant light in an image then there are some interesting possibilities. Here in this image below (click on it to see it better) I tried to create a unique lighting by using the flash and selecting a the partial sky background. I have selected the right flash output level, aperture and shutter to subtly highlight the flower with a unique emphasis on background (sky).

There are a few more visualizations in mind related to bad light - hopefully I will be able to explore them during coming weeks. I wish it rains during every week end for next few weeks !!

What is in common between them ?

Last Monday I got up and getting ready to go to office - thought it was another usual day, but it wasn’t. Around 6am it started paining below left ribs. The pain increased exponentially and it became unbearable around 7:30am. I had some kidney stones diagnosed earlier but was dormant, often, when I remembered to be precise, I use to drink water. Last year it was about 6mm and this year it has grown to 7.5mm - that is about 25% growth even during sub-prime crisis and economic downturn - not bad at all - wish my fixed deposit grows at that rate!

Soon, I called my photographer friend, Dr Ajit, a well known kidney transplant surgeon. I could not reach him but I rushed to Columbia Asia Hospital in Bangalore where he practices. On the way, I could contact Ajit when I reached hospital, Dr Ajit’s friends Dr Mohan and Dr Manohar whom I was supposed to see have been informed. His friends knew I share same interests Dr Ajit did - wildlife and photography. They started talking to me in those languages!

After a couple of doses of pain killers I was able to talk. Ultrasound scan showed a 7.5mm stone stuck at the tip of the ureta. Dr Manohar showed me the sonogram and showed the stone. I was curious to know where the ureta is - being familiar with 1600×1024 resolution and s-rgb color space is no use to interpret what is seen on the ultrasound screen. I asked Dr Manohar, where is the ureta ? Manohar replied - “Ganesh, it is not like tiger stripes - you can’t see that clearly but I can” - Needless to say I agreed with him!!

Next couple of days I was on medication (dialators, pain killers) in the wait mode to see whether the stone just passes out by itself - unfortunately it didn’t. On Thursday, doctors decided to remove it using endoscopic surgery. At 2 PM I was taken to operation theater where Mrs Ajit who is anaesthetist there helped me boost my confidence, so nice of her - it really helped. I was scared about taking anaesthesia. In OT I was greeted by Dr Manohar, who said - “See Ganesh, this is our forest”, I agreed and told him - “You folks are tigers here” - both of us had a laugh. Just before injecting anaethesia doctor asked where I wanted to go, he himself suggested Nandi Hills for some bird photography, I agreed. Next moment I was there probably, when I opened my eyes around 5pm my father and wife was near by. I was back from my 3 hours journey to Nandi hills.

Got discharged from hospital yesterday evening - It is still paining a bit, hope to recover soon…

Some of you have asked me why I have not updated my website or blog for long. It has been more than 3 months I have been working weekends and nights with a small team of friends who are also passionate nature photographers in creating a platform with a very narrow focus on creative nature photography. Here in this forum we have a clear focus on sharing some unique creative perspectives of nature not often seen. Unfortunately, as a friend of mine said, evolution of a nature photographer has been often considered as one who just bought an entry level SLR and a kit lens to those who could afford that 10/12Mega pixel, 8/10fps professional body and a 500mm/600mm f4 lens. Person behind the camera is often forgotten. In CNP we hope to clearly focus on aspects of making creative or original images. Currently we are doing beta testing of this platform. You can visit CNP here . You are welcome to join!

Here after I think I will get more time to update my blog and web site often.

Recently in one of nature forums I came across a discussion related to ethics in post processing. Later I realized it may be a good idea define a boundary for myself and put it in black and white. This resulted in a small article -

Digital Post Processing Ethics - My frame of reference

24 April 08 - UPDATED

Made some quick changes to my gallery software to show how post processing is done for each of the images. I am yet to add the symbol UA,DE and DM to all files but I added that feature to my gallery software. For a sample image you can see this one.

Last week end I visited Ramanagar in southern India to see my favorite vultures. There were a few roosting there and weather was very pleasant too (for a change). The blue sky and beautifully lit vultures offered me some nice possibilities. When I saw this vulture on the edge of the cliff first backed off quite a bit to get the perspective I wanted and made a couple of images. Later I thought of diagonally balancing the blue sky with a little darker region in the frame. I found an unlit tree and its branches which offered me some possibilities. With some difficulty I could make a few images through an unlit branch such that I get a kind of natural burning effect which resulted in the image below.

Some how I tend to like this latter image a little more than the former. In field we often don’t have time to think - at least we think so!!

PS : For better quality you may want to click on each of the images above.

During our recent visit to Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary in India, as I mentioned in the previous blog below I was challenged to make natural looking images of bears. Second day I stayed off the usual place which photographers use to make images of bears from a vehicle hide. I thought of setting up a remote trigger at some place to try something different. So I set up a remote trigger at a place where there are good chances of seeing bears. Set up everything and at around 1pm I sat in my camouflage cloth covered car far away just waiting to see bears. Around 1:30pm it started getting very cloudy and there were very heavy thunder storms. I had setup my Nikon D200 with 50mm f1.8mm lens mounted and buried in ground and just covered the whole setup with a cotton camouflage cloth. I was sure my camera will get totally soaked in water with cotton camouflage cloth nicely adding to collect more water - yet I decided leave it there and take a chance. I was ready to foot repair bills for just one memorable image.

Sure, it continuously rained for next few hours. My whole setup took nice multiple showers for about next 4-5 hours. I just sat in my car thinking about my camera and lens. No bears showed up may be due to heavy rain. At around 5:30pm a few bears started coming down. I was just hoping to see them on the path where I set up the trigger. No, they did not show up there but went some where else. It is nature and luck. Can I expect to be successful with one day of experiment ? I realized I was dreaming.

At around 6pm it is time to return. I slowly drove down near my set up. Just out of curiosity pressed release button on my remote trigger. I could hear D200’s shutter releases !! Everything was working just fine even after getting soaked in water for 4-5 hours on the ground. I had all appreciations for the Nikon’s construction quality of both the camera and the lens. Though I came empty handed, my camera and lens were in the same state as it was before - may be better since it took a nice bath -:)

If successful I was hoping to get a view something like below (image credit - Shivakumar L. Thanks Shiv!). Instead of seeing yours truly there you would have seen a bear !!

I really cherish those moments of waiting in rain now even if I could not make any image. Sure I got some very valuable learnings from this experiment. It is not only the images which count but the experiences of making them are invaluable too - more so when we are doing something out of just passion.

I made a few days trip to Munnar and Kumarakom in Kerala, India. Since I went with my family I left my camera bag at home. Nevertheless, I had my wife’s Nikon Coolpix P-50 to experiment. Wish I had my gear for better control and quality but then it was meant to be a sight seeing trip with family ..

We spent a day at Kumarkom in house boat. Very relaxing day on house boat. Spent some time at Kumarkom bird sanctuary - If you plan to visit this place for bird photography I advice you don’t waste your time.

We spent next couple of days at Munnar hill station in Kerala. I really enjoyed seeing Ervikulam National Park - an amazing place to make images of Nilgiri Tahrs amidst breath taking back drops of Sahyadris. One can literally touch them - they come so close to humans. But what is interesting is opportunities for beautiful compositions. May be I will visit this place again in future just for photography…

I made a quick visit (2-days) to Daroji bear sanctuary. This is my third visit to this beautiful place. I thought Daroji is the best place to photograph sloth bears in India. I have some second thoughts on it now. No doubt it is the best place to see them - but is it the best place for bear photography ? I personally feel very challenged to make natural looking images of them. Those who have visited Daroji may be able to relate what I am talking about. I spent just one day from vehicle hide near usual place and second day decided to stay off that place hoping to make some natural looking (at least) images of them. But both days it rained heavily. Not much of images from this trip - but lots of learning for the next one…

When I went to Kaziranga recently I thought of making conscious attempts at creating some unique perspectives of nature. But the excitement of the new place and lots of new subjects made it very difficult. I totally forgot about it ! It was during last couple of days I realized I did not make an effort at all to see things differently. I think visiting the same place again and again (for example places like TG halli) will probably forces us think out of the box.

You can see some these images here.

- Ganesh H Shankar