While most writers prefer to spend their time indoors working on their books, Susheela Nair likes to travel the world and capture her work on camera. The travel writer, photographer and director of Essen Communications had put together an exhibition over the weekend at the Alliance Francaise of around 100 photographs on adventure sports and outdoor activities.
Adventure sports have come a long way from traditional activities like camping, trekking and mountaineering and Susheela says she likes to explore and throw light on the various new adventure sports out there.
After five successful seminars on travel photography and writing and the publication of her book on ‘The Great Outdoors’ featuring adventuring tourism, Susheela presented the second edition of her photo exhibition on the same theme.
On display at the expo were an array of adrenalin-pumping, action-oriented photographs by amateur and professional photographers, adventure enthusiasts and various tourism boards.
Capturing incredible moments, some of the highlighted adventure sports were exhilarating to just view in the frame. While some of the pictures were sourced from the tourism boards of Thailand and South Africa, Karnataka-owned Jungle Lodges and adventure organisations, most of them have been taken by professional photographers including Susheela Nair, B. S. Prasad, K. Shivvu and C. R. Satynarayana and photojournalist B. Muralikrishnan.
The highlight of the exhibition were the offbeat adventure sports which featured geckoing (a form of white water tubing) in South Africa, kloofing (jumping off a cliff into a water body) in South Africa and mucking around in the mud at the Annual Splash festival in Wayanad.
The other photographs were segmented into three categories – water, aero and terrestrial activities. The terrestrial activities featured photos on floating in the Dead Sea, frolicking with elephants in the Patara Elephant Camp, desert safaris, sport climbing in Bangalore, rock climbing in Badami and Thailand’s seaside cliffs. This also included abseiling in Prachin Buri, rock climbing in Trang, quad biking, cycling and biking expeditions in Thailand, trekking in the Himalayas and Kilimanjaro as well as jumping off the Bloukrans Bridge in South Africa.
The adrenaline-rush aero sports had on display hot air ballooning and parasailing in Thailand, para-gliding in Dalhousie and South Africa as well as skydiving featuring cricketer Jonty Rhodes who is presently the brand ambassador of South African tourism. The aqua sports section ranged from braving the rapids in the Kali River, scuba diving in Phuket, snorkelling in Karwar, canoeing in Krabi and sea kayaking in the Gold Coast of Australia. The thrills also included water skiing, surfing and close encounters with the Nile crocodiles and great white sharks underwater from bite-proof cages.
ClBest action photos in each category went to Induna Adventures’ geckoing in the white waters of South Africa won in the water sports category while skydiving by the South Africa Tourism staked claim in the aero sports category and in terrestrial sports K. Shivuu’s biking acrobatics won the prize.
