Quitting one’s job to head to the jungles seems like a good idea, but few people are bold enough to make a career of it, says Darshan Manakkal.
 If a wildlife photographer were to wander into a crowd in Bangalore clad in his full regalia – monstrous lenses and tripod stands at hand – he would stand out like a snow leopard amidst a herd of wildebeest in the Masai Mara. However, the city’s more experienced wildlife shutterbugs don’t seem to be all that hung up on equipment. “Sensitivity towards nature and wildlife is critical,” said Kalyan Varma, a photographer with several awards to his credit, and whose pictures have been published in National Geographic. “I am a wildlife person first and then a photographer,” he said. Varma regularly collaborates with scientists, and is a trained naturalist. When he quit his IT job in 2004, he’d been an amateur photographer for nearly six years. “I was into wildlife photography at that time,” he explained, “and that snowballed into a fulltime career.”
Varma has travelled extensively since then, shooting in forests all over the world, from the BR Hills to the aforementioned Masai Mara. But he urges aspiring photographers to look in their own backyards for inspiration. “People think wildlife photography is about going to the core areas of a jungle,” he said. “But it’s not. I like to go to Cubbon Park and take pictures at a macro level. For my next project, I want to find one of the big trees that they’re going to cut down for the metro work, and I want to capture every inch and insect on that tree.” Varma also conducts workshops and photo safaris, where he stresses on looking beyond big mammals. “People tend to think that going to an exotic place and getting pictures is it,” he said. “I believe that exotic is easy, common is difficult.”
 Sudhir Shivaram, an amateur wildlifer, was quick to point out that photographing in the jungles as a fulltime profession was not for everybody. Director of a software firm in the city, he heads out to the nearest forest on every other weekend with a Canon ID Mark III, and a mounted 800mm lens. Shivaram said he had started photographing about 15 years ago, when he was at the Malnad College of Engineering in Hassan, being on call for functions, and on the many treks that they would venture out on. Since then, he has coupled his interest in photography with a passion for conservation, and now conducts workshops, tours, and also runs an online library that rents out lenses for a variety of requirements. It’s never about making a living, however. “Almost every other person in the software industry has a camera. If somebody is looking for an image of a tiger, there are 200 people willing to give their images, for free. A lot of professionals are going out of business,” he said.
Lloyd Nehemiah isn’t like any of those photographers – he has never sold an image and doesn’t intend to either. “Wildlife is a vice for me. I am addicted to it,” he said. An engineer with a construction company, Nehemiah literally wears his passion – he sports tattoos of a tiger, a leopard, mahseer and bison, and often exhibits his pictures – taken over 25 years – at schools and colleges. He’s also a snake catcher on call with the city corporation, a leader of birding tours and a founding member of the Nagarhole Conservation Society. Nehemiah said his experiments in wildlife photography started about 25 years back, when he was in class eight. Right from his first  shoot, Nehemiah understood the importance of being familiar with animal behaviour. “I stole my uncle’s camera – a 35mm Yashica – in his estate in Coorg,” he recalled. “I knew a place nearby where elephants would come down for a drink, and I wanted to take a picture. I did get the picture, though I was shit scared of going near the elephant.”
Varma’s images and details on his upcoming workshops are at www.kalyanvarma.net. Shivaram’s photographs, tips on identifying birds and details on workshops are at www.thejunglelook.com. Shivaram’s lens library is at www.lenslibrary.in. To learn more about the Nagarhole Conservation Society, call Nehemiah at 94480-84734. |
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