Once in a way, a photographer gets to capture a slice of life, a stunning moment from the natural world, quite out of chance. Oh no, its not the technical mastery that one is speaking about but the sheer occurrence of the event is indeed a rare chance.
The image of a blue tailed bee eater flying in to its nest with a dragonfly is quite an ordinary event; something that one gets to witness countless number of times but it remained a dream with me, to capture this moment artistically, for close to 2 years! I hadn’t seen many such images either, before I captured it. There is a story to this image as one should expect with every other priced image.
Before long, let me assure you all that, this picture was a result of strict ethical practices put in action over a period of two years and should not be treated as one of those pictures of nesting birds obtained with carelessness.
Sometime in 2010, I had chanced upon a wonderful article on European bee eaters in National geographic by a renowned wildlife photographer Joe Petersburger (https://joepetersburger.com/en/gallery). I was mesmerised by his pictures and was left speechless. One could only dream of such images but there was one decorated wildlife photographer whom i knew had accomplished the feat of capturing a beautiful image of green bee eater in flight – Dr. Manoj Sindagi. As I learnt later, he was also equally captivated by the beauty of the images published by Joe! And he was keen to explore opportunities to photograph the blue tailed bee eaters at a place not very far from the city of Mysore. It did not take much time for him to put together a recce trip to the place along with couple of other friends Ashwin and Harish. What a place it turned out to be! We were awestruck by the beauty of the place!
The place indeed attracted many photographers from Mysore and also from far off places. Almost all of them had a particular style. They came with a dry twig / perch and pitched it at a convenient place; the birds, over a period of time, got used to using these posts as a watch tower and the photographers got their priced pictures from within a hide. Some of them even enjoyed their cups of favourite drinks while pressing the shutter when the birds landed on the twig, lens pre-focussed and then returned to their cup once the bird flew away:) Well, there were some who resorted to really unethical practices but these can be written about some other day.
Fast forward to 2011 and to 2012. By now I had become a resident of Mysore and I started visiting the nesting sites more frequently. I had carefully chosen a site far away from the photographer’s favourite sites. This site required me to wade through neck deep water at times and even swim across the river. All equipments had to be wrapped water tight and pulled across the stream using an inflatable dinghy. The hide had to be set up early on before the birds emerged and on many occasions it was left behind so as to allow the birds to get accustomed to the setting. My observations with sketches and notes of the behaviour was empirical but quite thorough. I was mostly interested in any evidence of altruistic behaviour among the community. Again, this story is for another day / blog:) Many photographers end up spending early morning hours and evening hours for they give the best opportunity of lighting. But I ended up staying long hours through the day to study the behaviour. The hot and humid conditions took a toll on me. The only consolation for me was that my wife and son payed an occasional surprise visit to my project site!
By this time I had decided to capture the natural history of blue tailed bee eaters and also write it up for a nature magazine. I had tons and tons of images but something told me that I am yet to get one for the cover. This kept me going for some more days and weeks. Also my work on altruistic (?) behaviour was incomplete.
I distinctly remember that on one of those occasions when I was nearly finished capturing some eye level shots of Red Avadavat foraging on the ground I noticed a puny figure patiently waiting to exchange pleasantries with me. And there he was. His cousin Asish was also around. I knew Abhi from his school / college days. While I had just picked up nature photography, Abhi was a veteran, even before he had hit his teens! My joy knew no bounds and was keen to share my work and site and was even more keen to introduce him to my bi-ped friends whom I had come to know by their names:) These birds unlike others from a nearby site were quite used to my presence and didn’t fly out; they merely went about their business while I took care not to alarm them.
Just so, while Abhi settled down to observe these winged beauties, I tried what I thought had been trying for a while - To capture a picture of this bee eater hovering with a dragonfly in its beak. Even before the idea sank in, this dream just came true! My cover page image just got digitised and I was elated. In some sense, I had relived the moments when I had seen Joe’s image in Natgeo magazine. I knew then and there that I had to start writing it up.
Eventually the article was published by Saevus and received a message of my first pay cheque when I was in Siliguri!
http://www.ilaaphotography.in/uploads/ilaaphotography/RendezvousWithAnArtist_v5_landscape.pdf
