When I started serious photography in the year 2000, powerful telephoto lenses were kind of unaffordable for me. I had a 70-200 mm lens for a few years. I had no choice but to include a lot of habitat in my picture.
I loved shots that included a lot of habitat and still do. It adds to the feeling of wilderness.
Since then I went through a lot of lenses. I have owned over time 300, 400, 500, 600 and the 800 mm telephotos. For a couple of years I loved shooting 'tight' frames of animals but soon got back to shooting wider.
Social media posts kind of spoilt it because tight head shots often get more views as we see the pictures on a small frame. It's a different story with prints. Print this image and it will look all right, not great......
....print this one and it's a different ball game. Wide is awesome. It takes guts to stay wide with wildlife.
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A walk on the wild side. A very cool set of slightly wider angles pictures come out if you get a tiger on a territory marking walk. Even better if you can get them doing this on top of a plateau, when the plateaus still have some green colour.
My good friend Dr Dharmendra Khandal of @watch_tiger and I got a tigress called Arrowhead doing exactly that, a few days ago, first thing in the morning.
Even a short wall of a couple of km generates a lot of awesome wide angles. The background keeps changing fast.
Light and angle. My story.
I started serious photography 20 years ago. My first guru was a brilliant cinematographer Colin Patrick-Johnson. His take photography is all about angle, angle, angle. I use to be kicked with such pictures (Ground Hornbill) cause of low angle.
If you have an eye level angle, your subject looks normal. A higher angle like here makes your subject appear smaller. While lower angle make the subject appear larger than life.
I went for nicely front lit subjects because back then I use to think that front lighting was the best light. A few years later, I started getting bored of front lit scenes but I didn't really understand other lighting. Back to square one.
In 2008 my wife & I went for a drive along W coast of US. Got a car in San Francisco and in the next 75 days we drove from SF North till Seattle, E to Montana, then S via Arizona to San Diego and back to SF along Highway 1. 75 days, 1 tent, 2 people, 7500 $. Some pics from then
Let me tell you a story from Ranthambhore tiger reserve about 6 wild animals – a mama Sloth bear with two babies on her back, a pair of mating tigers and an ape with a camera (me). It’s an old story from almost a decade ago. Pardon the poor quality of pictures. Read on.
I had heard that there was a mating pair of tigers in an area called Kala Paani and we went there hoping to get pictures of mating tigers. I had heard that there was a mating pair of tigers in an area called Kala Paani. We did find a male tiger Ustaad and female called Noor.
After a short wait we saw a mother bear with two young ones on her back – this is how they transport them over long distances. The curious cubs were playing with each other while the mother started walking in the towards the tigers. We thought that the bear was in serious danger.