Recently I came across works of a 15 years old school kid named Nirvair Singh. Some of his work really made me think. Here are a few of his images -
Can this Survive in this World
These images and the way he titled those images made me think he has God’s gift to beautifully see the nature and more importantly translate them to images. I got in touch with him to know some more details – it appears he just got access to his father’s camera and he is learning and experimenting with it!! I am sure if he continues one day he will become a great fine art nature photographer – I sincerely wish him great success.
This triggered a thought in my mind – are several of us are born with such a skill to freely and beautifully express our visions and some where we got derailed while trying to learn nature photography ?
My little friend Nirvair has been seeing bird portraits on various internet forums for some time now. He told me he took lots of time using a blind and an 80-200mm lens to approach a cattle egret from a very close distance and made this image. This really concerned me a bit – I am not worried about the quality of the image here but I am really concerned about the photographic lesson he has quickly learnt from the net – approach as close as possible to get a frame filling image !
Questions that are currently running in my mind are -
Did our visions distort during our learning journey of nature photography ? Did we learn those attributes which went beyond techniques of using a camera and started imitating others, throwing our own God given natural visions ? Or we are not as gifted as my little friend Nirvair is ?
I hope it is the last one otherwise it really hurts 
Very true Ganesh. Esp the image titled “Just before I leave” is really moving. Enjoyed looking at it a lot. Looks like joining/browsing internet forums on one side serves as motivation in the sense we get to network with like minded people. On the other hand there is a tendency to make images which please others perception rather than ours.
Comment by Mahesh Devarajan — September 3, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
Agree with you Mahesh.
Look at that title – “Just before I leave”, so are other titles of his images. Looks like we missed a course on selective learning in nature photography
- Ganesh H Shankar.
Comment by ganesh — September 4, 2008 @ 7:11 am
Images of Master Nirvair Singh had escaped my attn. until I read your blog. Even a non-photographer like me can see he is so different and makes special impression. Let him evolve on his own, and sure he will make his mark.
Comment by Ashok T Hegde — September 19, 2008 @ 1:52 am