Once upon a time...

There was a rich family who appointed a new man-servant.
He started to tell tiny stories to kids in the house, to put them to sleep at night. The kids would go to bed without the parents having to push them hard, since the new servant came. They would wake up fresh in the morning and go to school without fuss, thanks to being early to bed.

The parents were overjoyed. They decided to take off all the responsibilities of the servant and to employ him only for making new stories and telling them to the kids. They told him of the same. He too was very happy, that his pass-time would earn him more than from the backbreaking work all day...

That night he sat next to the kids, covered them up with a blanket. "Once upon a time... " he started. Words stopped to spring up into his mind. He started sweating. The kids sat up wondering what happened to him.

The only thoughts that would come into his mind were "What if I can't think of any stories tomorrow? What if I lose my job? " . And that blotted out the stories.

Next day he politely declined the offer of the full time job and went back to sweeping and mopping the floor.

Birdwatch : Pheasant tailed Jacana

I had seen this beauty a couple of times. First time at Polachira, near Kollam, and then in Lingambudhi kere , mysore. Both the times I had to be contented with record shots and both the cases, I had found them to be quite shy like the other jacanas.

Today , by accident, after a lousy day out at a lake at Mysore , not able to photograph any good birds, I had loaded my macro lens and started looking around for bugs. Then to my surprise, I saw this bird quite close to the shore, walking amidst the muck. I cursed myself for loading the macro, hid behind a bush and started changing my lens. Then I saw two farmers walk past, talking loudly and I was sure that by the time they pass this guy would be off. But to my surprise it still continued to walk around.

I crouched up to it after loading my lens. But it was down at the lake bed where as I was atop a bund. I sat at the edge of the bund and made a couple of shots. No reaction. All other birds around - herons, moorhens - took off. It still didnt budge. I have never shimmied down that bund even though I have been visiting that place for a year now. I sat at the edge and slid down, fearing that the bird would take off. It became a little alert, but still didnt fly. I sat there for a few minutes to put it at ease and climbed down further. It again paused for a moment and continued on its business. I was now at the lake bed, and about 3-4 meters from him. The white head, and the golden neck (I wish the sun was out, that would have been a wow sight) and the brown back with a long tail, got me captivated. It paused to give a sweet 'meewp' call once a while, and continued wading.

I sat there for about 20 minutes, taking shots after shots and finally the full group took off and flew away . This I guess would be my closest encounter with this beautiful bird, ever!

The Gorilla's Kiss at Kunti betta

Had been to Kunti Betta near Pandavapura last weekend along with Deepu and Prasath. Though the intention was to do pure bird photography, the plans took a U-turn thanks to the cloudy skies and bad light. I decided to shoot with shorter lenses, looking at the landscape. There were small hillocks which were strewn with huge boulders all around. This was supposed to be one of the place where the Pandavas during their vanavasa (banishment into forest).

There were a group of scouts, who were jogging in the area around us and they managed to scare off the birds in and around the main road leading uphill, so we decided to climb the hill off the track. The landscape looked like the territory in Daoroji Bear Sanctuary, and for a moment, I was apprehensive that I may end up standing face to face with a bear. To come face to face with a bear is worse than coming face to face with a leopard, tiger or even an elephant, as you are more likely to get mauled than anything else.

But thankfully all we came across were small birds, rock agamas, calotes lizards and a distant peahen. Francolin calls were everywhere, but we didnt see any. There was a solitary male shikra that flew past, a falcon that flew high up and finally a fig tree full of figs and bulbuls.
No bird keepers from the entier trip, but then I concentrated more on minimalistic shots, came up with a few ;)

A photographer’s life cycle…

Having been into photography seriously for 6 years, and having seen a lot of photographers and my own life, I just thought I would pen down this simple trend I observed… Please don’t take it as my disrespect to any of the other photographers, coz as an anticipatory bail let me tell you I myself can identify a lot of this with my own growth (?) as a photographer…
Level 0- Blissfully Clueless
The earlier one gets out of this phase the better. This is that phase when you don’t know what a camera is for. Every time you see a beautiful landscape/ scenery you place yourselves or a relative or friend in the CENTER of the frame and shoot. When the film is developed you wonder why there is a shake, why the flash has cast a shadow on two of the three people’s face and why are the subjects silhouetted. You expect the camera to do everything! When you see a photographer on the ground trying to take an eye level, you mutter “crack case”…
And the only way you can be a drop out from this level of photography is by moving on to one of the levels above! In short, you cant quit from this level, you can only climb up!
Level 1 - I’ve got talent
It all starts when you get your hands on a point and shoot or a mobile camera that can do nothing but shoot what you have pointed it at, at best with a vague interpretation of “metering”. Ah, you may have those A, P, S, M (or Tv, Av) etched on the tiny dial at the top of the camera, which you think is part of the camera’s aesthetics. You shoot some badly overexposed flowers, blurred sunsets, badly composed butterflies, sea shore and anything with bright colors. Seeing the image, your poor parents and siblings and friends (who have no relationship with photography other than having seen press photographers of the 80s walk around in kurtas with a beard, specs, and a cloth shoulder bag or having seen photos in the local news-papers and who belong to the Level-0) say “Wow” for everything you shoot. And you keep spending your free time in the kitchen garden shooting insects and bugs pretending that you belong to the elite National geographic class, or roam the streets with a “Reuters” journalist air. You shoot bucketfuls and upload all of it in Orkut and get “Oh wow you are a genius” from friends.
You go to tourist places, see people with large cameras and wonder why they need such stuff when you can create ‘magic’ with your gear. And to prove a point, you stand next to them (probably shooting with a 500mm at a bird sitting miles away), flip out your camera with some real jazzy wrist moment, point it at the bird, click, give a smirk at the poor photographer and walk off … You submit entries to Nat geo magazine and photography contests and on rejection give up (not photography, but submission)saying that the guys are biased against people from your part of the world or that they are lousy judges of art. The only thing you gain from this phase is that you start loving the outdoors. And hell no- you don’t have a clue about aperture, shutter speed, rule of thirds and when you heard someone say “I bought an SLR” you think it is the BSA SLR cycle. You also think touching up images while processing is sacrilege. Technically speaking, this phase can be called as the “Unconscious competence” phase.
There is either an exit or progression from this level. Exit is when you grow bored of the hobby. Progression is when you realize where you actually stand.
Level 2- The revelation
This is when you get into the company of people who know better; through non-back scratching forums (where you get good honest advice than "nice one" comments expecting you to comment back) , through some sincere advice, and through some guy who knew better and who finally does a favor to you by letting you know that you are thinking too highly of yourselves. That is the moment of realization that erupts like a volcano in your brain, and believe me, it is the biggest blow to one’s ego. People react to this in multiple ways
1) I don’t care what you say. I am GOD, and I don’t believe in rules of composition or moving out of auto mode. I see art in this and if you don’t, I pity you.
Or
This was shot while the train was moving at 100kmphr and to discuss this photograph on light, composition and aesthetics is blasphemy.
2) My gear is not good enough, that is why you feel my photos are not up to the mark. I will upgrade!
3) Damn. I never thought this was so complex. Who wants photography anyway?
4) Hey, I didn’t know that! I should explore this.
(I remember, somebody once told me about the photography club at Infosys, when I was walking around with a 3mpx point and shoot and with an inflated ego 5 years back, I thought “Why do I want suggestions for improvement? My photos are good”. But I am glad I got over that phase real soon)
You may do a gear upgrade and still find degradation in the quality of your shots, as you don’t know the basics enough to handle the new gear well.
From this level also, there is exit, progression and stagnation. Group 1 and group 2 would remain, 3 would exit and 4 would progress to the next level!
Level 3- The learning curve
80% of what you know about photography is learnt in this phase. You are like a hungry caterpillar hogging before going into a pupa. The more time you spend here, the better. You read, try to incorporate it in your clicks, read more and suddenly you find a dramatic increase in the quality of your shots. You suddenly realize why all those clicks that got selected in Nat Geo and various other contests really scored ahead of you. You suddenly have newfound respect towards the guys whom you erstwhile thought to be smart-alecks. The pictures that you make start becoming technically perfect, and when you review your shots taken earlier, you are able to find thousands of mistakes. You still shoot bucketfuls, but you process 5-10% only and share in public just half of that. And you feel *good*.

Level 4- The stagnation
You keep switching between this and the learning curve. Occasionally the feeling comes that you have learned enough, and the caterpillar gets into the pupa – or a shell rather. You become impervious to inputs, you don’t see out of the box and you think you have learnt enough. It may be all that compliments you got getting into your head. You slowly become an smart aleck.
The one fine day you run into a phase where your shots are stereotypical. They all look the same, and you feel bored of them. The salvation comes through some kind of an inspiration- better gear, doing something different, or getting introduced to a different genre. And then you again go back to the caterpillar phase.

Level 5- Fine art
This is the phase where you decide you have done enough of “conventional” stuff and start making things that makes you happy. You are at your creative best here. Light falling on obscure things, minimalism, blur, patterns – you latch on to all these and end up with some shots that are brilliant. They may not be appreciated by all, but you have that warmth within which is all motivation you need to keep moving ahead.

Level 6- Overboard
This is an overdose of fine art… And to a lot of other people, it would just be fine art minus the ‘ine’. You are either too cocky to accept it or don’t care as you are beyond the point where you care for popularity. You see patterns, stories and creativity in areas others see only darkness. Almost like the “No country for old men” movie. Some love it, some hate it, and some say they love it to prove they are intellectual (remember the emperor's new clothes story?). All those modern art paintings which only intellectuals buy, paying millions are examples... Art is subjective, so finally, art lies in the eyes of the beholder!
Copyright Sandeep Somasekharan, 2010

The birds I saw- Great hornbill.

I missed seeing him in the last three trips of mine. First one was to Pachakkanam -Joseph's uncle's cardamom estate deep inside Periyar tiger reserve- in Oct-08, then two subsequent trips to Valparai. The Valparai trip had given us amazing sightings of the endagered Lion-tailed macaque and the the Nilgiri Tahr. We reached the estate on our second trip- December 09 and Joseph's uncle remarked that our timing couldnt have been better- there were a couple of Giant hornbills coming to a fig tree behind the estate every day. We walked out to have a look and were greeted by a loud 'Kok' call - undeniably the hornbills. This loud call gives him his Malayalam name - Malamuzhakki or he who makes the mountains reverberate. And undeniably he is the state bird of Kerala. We saw them take off elegantly from the trees and disappear higher up into the canopy, and all of us were thrilled to the core....

After our lunch we decided to climb up to the tree where these chaps were supposed to be feeding. It was a leech infested path and most of us got bitten. Finally we reached the top of the climb, but there were no hornbills. We walked off further, and had some sightings of a crested serpent eagle, some white bellied treepies etc. On our way back, I noticed a huge black and white bird on the same fig tree. And then as it turned its head, there was this huge yellow beak, that was revealed to us. It was sitting on the tree, quite close to the road. We set up our tripods and cameras and started firing away. There was a second one sitting on another branch, probably his mate. The rich yellow beak and casque had pink tips, and overall the birds looked in the pink of health as well.He entertained us for a while, and took off with his mate, and sat on a tree further away. As he flew off, his wings made a loud flapping noise that sounded like a whiplash. We moved on, thanking god for this wonderful sighting.

Great Hornbills (Buceros bicornis) mate for life and during times of laying eggs, he seals the female inside a tree hole with mud and his saliva, leaving just her beak out. And he feeds here day in and day out as she lays eggs and hatches them. Once the kids are hatched, the male (mostly malnourished by now)helps in opening the hole and letting the fattened female out. In most cases, if the male hornbill dies in the hand of hunters/ through some other means while the female is nesting, invariably the female dies of hunger as well.

Our second sighting came a day later as we were driving along the forest road, to the estate. Nikhil, our expert sighter noticed something dark in the horizon, flying towards us. We stopped the car and got down. There was a hornbill couple, flying really high, but they being so huge, identifying them wasnt difficult. And the swooshing sound of the wingsweeps were still audible, resonating in the silence of the forest. And they disappeared into the canopy somewhere higher up.

The last spotting was on the last day of our stay in Pachakkanam, when we decided to go back to the hornbill tree. They were there again, picking berries, tossing them up and swallowing them and preening themselves. An estate worker told us that early in the morning, at around 6 am, there would be quite a few of them on the tree, but the others go off later in the day. The duo gave us some more poses and took off from the tree half an hour later. By then we had our hearts and memory cards full of visions of this amazing bird!

Copyright Sandeep Somasekharan, 2009

Migrant watch- the new season begins.

The kestrels are all over the place here in Mysore. The week before last I had my first Kestrel sighting outside Infosys Mysore- it was a lady soaring high over the outer wall. And that saturday I roamed about the outskirts of Mysore and saw a couple of them. Couldnt make a decent shot though. But in the evening, in the golden light, I did manage to get hold of one of them!

I would have managed a better shot, had the sun not have hidden himself behind a cloud a minute earlier. This lady was sitting on a log, and we got our car parallel to her at about 3 meters from here. The shots were comign out blurred as the engine was idling and there was no direct sunlight. I asked Nikhil to switch off the engine. But as he switched it off, the car gave a beep and unlocked the doors- hearing which she got startled and flew off! Bad luck!!!

Copyright Sandeep Somasekharan, 2009

I beg you... not to feed me.

A large concrete board that you see while entering Mudumalai- en route to Ooty, featuring a Nilgiri Langur's face, has this line written on it. "I beg you... not to feed me". I, my friend Prasanna, and our wives were on the way to Ooty. The primary intention was to get a few clicks of the flycatcher birds there. As we entered Mudumalai, there was the aforementioned board that attracted our attention. We discussed at length on the same. The most plausible reason that we could think of was that animals would get dependant on the easy food that they get from the tourists who drive through, and lose their natural feeding skills. We discussed at length other reasons. It could as well have been because unaccustomed food like chips and other fried items could upset the stomachs of these creatures. But to realize another major danger, we had to wait till our return trip.

On our way back, somewhere near the Bandipur safari camp, there were monkeys all over the road-side. Both Hanuman langurs as well as the common Indian bonnet macaque - the ones you find near temples etc. There was a qualis right ahead of us, crammed with family members and the rear window area showcasing piled up food baskets. They started throwing out bread crumbs out of the windows, all over the road. All the monkeys were on the crumbs in an instant, and in a moment, there were monkeys all over the road, right in front of us. Thankfully, we were driving at a low speed, and the monkeys picked the food and scampered off from just in front of the bonnet, without any being hit. And I saw a little one pick a piece of bread right from near the front wheel, and it was really its luck that its hand didn't get trapped under the wheel. The mindless, though gracious act of city dwellers nearly caused greivious injury to innocent wild animals.

A few feet ahead, we saw this group of Hanuman langurs, and one of them had a bad, fresh injury on his shoulder, which I used my tele to get a shot of. God knows if it was because of scrambling for food on the road, in front of incoming traffic...

But to those of you who read this, PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT FEED Wild animals while you pass thorough forest roads.

Copyright Sandeep Somasekharan, 2009