Four men who share a passion for wildlife photography came together to showcase 130 images of rare and beautiful birds and animals at ‘Shutter Season', a wildlife photography exhibition-cum-sale held in the city recently.
Clement Francis (47) has travelled to places such as Kenya and Sri Lanka in search of that perfect shot, besides leaving his footprint in almost every jungle in India. He has photographed more than 600 bird species over 25 years.
Varun H.B. (30), from Ooty, has captured on camera the endemic species of the Western Ghats, including the Nilgiri laughingthrush. For a photograph of a male crested treeswift, Varun says he climbed a precarious tree and waited for 10 hours at his perch about 30 feet from the ground for a good shot.
Ramesh Anantharaman (32), winner of the Photography World Cup 2010, has photographed over 400 species of birds and mammals. Among his works is one of the blue-fronted robin, found in the Purvachal Hills in Sikkim and said to be very difficult to spot.
The youngest of the lot, 27-year-old Sanket Reddy's work was featured in the award-winning series The Pack by wildlife filmmakers Krupakar and Senani. His collection includes images of a leopard in the grasslands of Masai Mara in Kenya and a tiger in all its glory at Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh.
In the coming months, the Shutter Season team plans to conduct wildlife photography workshops: ‘tiger season' will be at the Bandhavgarh National Park during November; ‘winter migrant experience' in Ooty and Kotagiri (Tamil Nadu) in December; ‘lion madness' at the Gir Forest National Park, Gujarat, in January; and ‘birding in never never land' for an experience of the Rann of Kutch and Banni Grasslands Reserve Belt.
