WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY
IN TRANSITION
Sanctuary | Cover Story
KALYAN VARMA
Text and photographs by Kalyan Varma
It was just past fi ve p.m. on a hot June evening in the
Ranthambhore National Park. There were more than two dozen
gypsies, a preferred wildlife safari vehicle in the Indian jungle, lined
up by the edge of the famous Rajbagh lake. Word had got around
that the well-known tigress, popularly referred to as Arrow Head,
was inside the old fort and would emerge any time now. The sun
was slowly descending into the horizon and the evening light had
begun to cast long shadows across the landscape.
Suddenly, there was excitement and energy rippling across the
vehicles. The atmosphere was charged and all one could hear was
the sounds of camera shutters, like the rattling of machine guns in
a war zone. It was as if a commander had signalled ‘charge’ to the
platoon waiting to shoot at the slightest movement.
Hundreds of cameras and many expensive ones in their tens
of frames per second modes clicked away. The only sounds
one could hear was that of cameras going off and within a few
seconds the tiger disappeared behind a rock and dozed off lazily.
After a pause and deep breath, people began reviewing the
images they had managed to shoot and moved on.
I suspect there were at least 2,000 images shot in less
than 10 seconds and then, of course, there were a few who
had just about managed to take a selfi e with the far-away
royal Bengal tigress before she disappeared.
In all this commotion, I could not concentrate enough
to take a single photograph. Is this what has become ofphotography? Keep shooting non-stop and hope that you
might end up with a good image later?
I realised that it was no longer about an amazing moment
in the natural world that people want to capture. It’s a
paradigm shift in culture and what has become the face of
wildlife photography today.
Let me explain.
Until about the 1990s, wildlife photography in India was
mostly an exclusive bastion with a few well-known names.
Most of them were truly natural history enthusiasts, who
mostly chose the medium because of their love for being out
in the wild.
As little as 15 years ago, if one had to see and experience
nature photographs, most people had to either visit a wildlife
exhibition hosted by a well-known photographer in the city
or go though second-hand book stores to buy a coff ee table
book by a foreign photographer.THE LAST DECADE
Digital photography technology has grown in leaps and bounds
in over just a decade. I remember reading that late legends such
as M. Krishnan, T. N. A. Perumal and M. Y. Ghorpade, would spend
days and weeks in the wild and come back with just one roll of
exposed fi lm. Note that, back then, you could not change the ISO
and you were stuck with 36 shots once you had loaded a fi lm.By Kalyan Varma