The Little Raptor!

The Shikra is so far the smallest bird of prey I've encountered when compared to the eagles and hawks which is the same family it belongs to. But they are nevertheless, equally graceful in their perch.

This one had perched on a branch right by the side of the road and the dull light was making it difficult to get good shutter speed. This was shot with a 1.4x TC on the 600mm at 1/30s shutter and I never expected the result to be this good looking. The blown out areas around the bird are because of the sky visible through the leaves in the background, but there was no way to avoid that.

Tech Specs:
Canon 7D + Canon 600mm with 1.4x TC
Shot at 840mm, 1/30s, f5.6, ISO 400

Baby bloom!

This summer was a very rewarding experience with the langur babies. I had two or three opportunities to watch the mother-baby interaction closely. The baby enjoys attention from the entire group, and with a newborn in her arms, the mother is always kept in the close guards of the family. At one time, the whole family was shielding the mother from being seen with the baby.

The babies on the other hand, as innocent and exploratory that they can be, are always on the lookout for some mischief. At 2-3 weeks, they look so similar with human babies except for the the dark furry coat which slowly starts turning grey as they grow up.

This one was taken at Kanha national park on a rather dull day considering it was peak summer in April.

Tech Specs:
Canon 7D + Canon 600mm
Shot at 600mm, 1/320s, f4, ISO 400

Reviving an old flame!

There's your passion and then there's work! It's always difficult to strike a balance between the two especially when you are passionate about things that conflict with your work commitments. Don't get me wrong here, I love my job and have no intentions of giving up my professional career as yet. But its unlike photography where one good picture makes your day and sometimes weeks together!

The initial idea for this blog was to keep account of all my trips and compile them into a collection for a read when I'll be too old to move out of the armchair, and may be also use it to show my grandkids how much fun it was being in the early 20th century. But, over time work took over and writing never really took off!

This time, I'm going to revive it again with the hope that I'll be able to keep it alive for a long long time. To keep things simple, I'm going to also make some changes to the format and use this space to talk about what I like the most - Photography. I'm no master of the art so I'll stay away from giving discourses and lectures about how to make your pictures look better, there are already tons of sites which do that. Instead, this will be a platform to share some of the pictures I like and my thoughts on why I like them or what was I thinking when I made the image.

Enough of gyaan for Day 1, here's a picture I will cherish for a long time.



This is a very special picture for me. Its taken from an elephant back during the morning "Tiger Show", but thats not what makes it special. This was a trip when me and Elvin took my 16-month old daughter to the jungles of MP on a 10 day trip. A detailed account of my trip can be found at Two Men & A Baby - In Search Of The Stripes.

I don't really approve of the commercialized Tiger Show process and was very skeptical of doing the elephant ride given the amount of equipment and the little one, but we thought we'd do it for the one-time experience. I was holding on to the 7D+600mm combo and my daughter with one hand and had the 70-200 mounted on the 400D on the other hand to click this one. It was a tough situation, but I'm happy with the result!

My daughter on the other hand was so delighted by the whole experience, especially when she spotted the striped cat walking next to the elephant, I could see the excitement in her eyes.

Now coming to the technicalities, I know it isn't the best angle to photograph this magnificent animal and I could have easily gotten a better composition by keeping some more space around it. But this is what you can get when you're managing a baby and hanging on to the elephant back. :)

Stay tuned for more...