Wild moments
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It is not easy to capture Nature on camera.BIBHUTI MISHRA writes of two photographic exhibitions on wildlife and nature held in Bhubaneshwar recently.
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H.V. PRAVEEN KUMAR
H.V. Praveen Kumar's "The Royal Fight".
A WILDLIFE photographer, more than perhaps anybody else, needs to be at the right place at the right time. How else would one capture the ideal moment? The first "National Nature and Wildlife Photographic Exhibition" organised by the Federation of India Photography at Bhubaneswar, Orissa, on the occasion of World Wildlife Week drove home this point. The sight of two adult tigers fighting, a charging tusker with the dust billowing behind him, a monkey in mid-air, a pair of pairing bees or a Nilgiri Tahr quenching its thirst at a water hole were some of these moments.
The exhibition also threw up questions on issues that need to be widely debated if conservation is to be prioritised. The message was reinforced by another week-long exhibition called "Wildlife affairs" held by "Wild Orissa", a society working for conservation since 1997.
The issue of conservation
According to Surjit Bhujbal, many of whose photographs were on display, "The photographs are designed to impact the minds of people who could be reoriented to have a more considerate approach to wildlife which many of us destroy wittingly or unwittingly. As a photographer, I am, of course, touched by the breathtaking beauty of our wildlife. But, at the same time, I hope my pictures reach out to the common man and makes him aware of its decimation, degradation and the need for conservation."
As if to reinforce this amid the 200-odd pictures that were truly representative of our wildlife heritage, were disturbing pictures of animal killings and tigers mobbed by tourists in a national park.
"For Nature pictures, one has to have the basic idea of composition, imagination and correct positioning and the best time is, of course, early morning or late afternoon," said ace photographer-artist Ramahari Jena.
The prize winning entries
There were three sections — Nature Print, Monochrome Print and Colour Slide. Bangalore-based photographer H.V. Praveen Kumar won the first prize in Nature Print section for "The Royal Fight" while Ashok Dilwali, New Delhi, and Abhijit Sarkar, Raiganj, won the second and third prizes in this section for "Katcwal Island" and "Gemini 2" respectively. Certificates of merit were won by Yashadhan Bhatia, Jamnagar, for his "Stilts mating", H. Satish, Bangalore, for "Green Bee Eater pair", and Lokesh Mosale, Mysore, for "Small Bee Eater pair". In the Colour Slide section, Vidyadhar D. Shalke of Belgaum won the first prize for his "Elephant in Kaziranga", while Baba S. Ramannavar, Belgaon, won the second prize for "Nilgiri Tahr at Water Hole" and H. Satish, Bangalore, won the third prize for "Chestnut-headed bee eater". H. Satish also won the top prize in the Monochrome Print for his "Small Minivet in Flight", while the second prize went to S.M. Pradhan of Orissa for his "Struggle for Existence".
H. SATISH
Careful composition was the prize-winning secret.
In the Slide section, the certificate of merit was won by H.V. Praveen Kumar for "Grey Hornbill with feed", C.R. Ananthamurthy for "Small Blue Kingfisher" and James S. Murthy for "Male Sambar at Bandhavgarh".
Photographer P.C. Dhir, Divisional Secretary of the Nature and Wildlife Division of the Federation of Indian Photography and the brain behind this exhibition, said, "Unfortunately there were not many entries in the Monochrome section. It is a medium that could be really exploited once the photographer gets the depth and the rhythm right." Dhir, who was one of the three-member jury, revealed that manipulation in photographs were a disqualification, and the jury basically went for the subject and the technique.
Kaliprasad Mishra, photographer, felt that good lighting and careful composition would make even a casual picture take on a rhythm of its own and seem life-like. That was perhaps the secret behind the award-winning and most appreciated snapshots of wildlife on display at the exhibitions.
In the end whether it is the beauty of Indian wildlife or the issues involved that were projected by the photograph, the success of the first ever nature and photographic exhibition was in the statement of Brooks Anderson that the virtue of the camera is the impulse it gives the viewers to keep looking on.
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