For one, purely from a professional view-point -- when one considers the aesthetic quality of the photographs and the amount of back-breaking labour involved in making images of birds in the wild, this is a bleak field to be in.
Like I keep saying, I am a professional when it comes to bird images,
but then birds don't / can't pay me for my labour, what to talk of the
artistic merit of my work!
For another, like any other thing that becomes a "fad", the bird photography "field" in India is also choc-a-bloc full with those who go about their photography solely with the intention of ticking off boxes from a list -- the type who count the number of species they have bagged, or exult about having photographed "rare birds".
And as can be expected, most of these folks are pretty good when it comes to PR, etc, etc.
Which means, the field that is bleak to begin with, gets even bleaker.
And yet, when I shake my head to get rid of all these meddlesome misgivings, and look at things with the right perspective, I realize that there is so much that I have already gained from the time I have spent in the pursuit of birds.
That, I have a treasure trove of moments that no money in the world can ever buy, and that most often than not, I have managed to capture those moments by using a keen intellect, sharp reflexes and quite a lot of woodcraft.
Its one of those days when that perspective is at work. Because these two young Shikras delighted me with their presence for almost an hour...while I circled the Neem tree in which they were roosting, a tree that is incidentally full of knots, snags and apparently full of gnarled branches -- which meant that these guys were will-nigh impossible to spot most of the time whenever they turned their backs on me.
And then, while I was footing it yet again, going round the tree one more time -- I struck gold. Or you could say, I simultaneously struck two veins of gold.
Does seem as if they wanted to pose for me, no?
P.S. -- A well-deserved plug for Nikon
This image was made on a Nikon D610, with a 600 mm f/4 lens (and thanks to a Teleconverter, an effective reach of 850 mm). I had to crouch from a standing up position, to be able to focus on the birds through intervening branches; and was hand-holding the lens. The tree was back-lit (that accounts for the blown out white spots in the foliage in this image) and all that my eye could see was two pale washes of white, and yet the AF performed immaculately and delivered this outstanding photograph!
For another, like any other thing that becomes a "fad", the bird photography "field" in India is also choc-a-bloc full with those who go about their photography solely with the intention of ticking off boxes from a list -- the type who count the number of species they have bagged, or exult about having photographed "rare birds".
And as can be expected, most of these folks are pretty good when it comes to PR, etc, etc.
Which means, the field that is bleak to begin with, gets even bleaker.
And yet, when I shake my head to get rid of all these meddlesome misgivings, and look at things with the right perspective, I realize that there is so much that I have already gained from the time I have spent in the pursuit of birds.
That, I have a treasure trove of moments that no money in the world can ever buy, and that most often than not, I have managed to capture those moments by using a keen intellect, sharp reflexes and quite a lot of woodcraft.
Its one of those days when that perspective is at work. Because these two young Shikras delighted me with their presence for almost an hour...while I circled the Neem tree in which they were roosting, a tree that is incidentally full of knots, snags and apparently full of gnarled branches -- which meant that these guys were will-nigh impossible to spot most of the time whenever they turned their backs on me.
And then, while I was footing it yet again, going round the tree one more time -- I struck gold. Or you could say, I simultaneously struck two veins of gold.
Does seem as if they wanted to pose for me, no?
P.S. -- A well-deserved plug for Nikon
This image was made on a Nikon D610, with a 600 mm f/4 lens (and thanks to a Teleconverter, an effective reach of 850 mm). I had to crouch from a standing up position, to be able to focus on the birds through intervening branches; and was hand-holding the lens. The tree was back-lit (that accounts for the blown out white spots in the foliage in this image) and all that my eye could see was two pale washes of white, and yet the AF performed immaculately and delivered this outstanding photograph!
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