Away till 2nd Jan...

From tomorrow till 2 nd Jan I will be away from concrete jungles. No access to blog/mail till 2nd Jan!!

Seasons greetings to all !

- Ganesh H Shankar (Nature Lyrics)

Home being renovated..

I wanted my website to be very simple and artistic. I did lots of search on available gallery softwares and tried a few like gallery2. While they are feature rich I did not like them for artistic reasons. Initially I chose Photoshop's gallery creation software and plugged into my web site. It served the purpose of being simple - but not as artisitic. This also gave me a rude surprise when I started looking at my web statistics. Web hits due to search engines were very low. This I realized is due to the fact that web gallery generation had no option to associate information with images. Due to this reason good collection of my images were not indexed by search engines. To solve this I started writing a simple gallery software (in C) to suit my taste - spent a few weekends so far on this. The new gallery design is again static but I can associate information with each image which hopefully search engines with index in future. One advantage of being static gallery is I can automatically generate sitemaps to cover **all** images at my web site easily - not very easy if I use php. I hope to extend my tailor made software to include sitemap creation etc in the near future - for this I will need a few more weekends and late night hours !!

So here goes my partly rennovated site. Slightly more artistic I guess (not satisfied fully though!). I have migrated two galleries (Creative Visions and Personal Favourites) to this scheme. Need to complete the rest. Added some information for a few of images in these two galleries. My gallery software takes an ascii file containing file name of the each file and some associated information. It then automatically creates all gallery structures, html pages etc. I have been entering information related to each of those images. It may take months before I can complete them - what a boring job - yet very important !!

- Ganesh H Shankar (Nature Lyrics)

Day of Macro Photography

I spent some time today morning at TG Halli photographying butterflies. Though I went out there with my 600mm f4, I quickly packed it to try some macro images. Light was excellent, so were macro opportunities. Here are couple of images I made today - you may want to click on them to view them at their actual size to really enjoy them.


Other images I made today are at my New Images gallery or in my Macro Gallery

- Ganesh H Shankar (Nature Lyrics)

BOS (Bird-on-a-Stick) v/s Creative Composition

If you have observed any avian gallery for some time you will quickly see a pattern there - lots of images look beautiful at the first glance - scientifically very well executed - right exposure, head turn, nice perch, catch light, eye contact, eye level - *conforming* in general to *well accepted rules* of making image of birds. During initial few years of my avian photography I practiced this a lot. After some time I realized I need to find my own way of conveying how I see my subjects. This led me to experiementing with various compositional possibilities, use of light and shadows, use of habitat, use of "positive space" in the frame amoung other things. Not easy since it is not formula based, I may not be successful always and may end up in a typical BOS or its variation, but when I succeed it is a very satisfying. For me the image above is a typical bird-on-a-stick image without much originality while the below one is not (for my tastes). It is interesting to note though that differences between them are very subtle !!



You may want to click on above images to see them in their actual sizes. Blog's resizing algorithm appears bad and hence some critical details are lost which are essential to relate the point I am trying to make here.

PS : I am out of station durning 25 Nov - 30 Nov and may not see my blog.

- Ganesh H Shankar (Nature Lyrics)

Patience paid off - A winning entry in the National Wildlife 2007 Photo Contest

When I made this image I had to spend a few hours in planning, waiting for this Tailed Jay butterflies to show up on the flower and thinking about right shutter speed, background to use etc. Happy to know this is one of the winning entries in the 2007 National Wildlife Photo Contest.

- Ganesh H Shankar (Nature Lyrics)

Perspectives - Creative Visions of Nature

Perspectives - Creative Visions of Nature is a new gallery at my home Nature Lyrics. I skimmed through a fairly large collection of my images and picked those images where an attempt at seeing things differently are evident - at least to me -:) Does that mean there is not much of "seeing" in rest of the large number of images in my galleries ? I would humbly accept so. Not confusing between originality and beauty I keep rest of the images for the latter reason in my galleries. I wish and hope to add more images to this gallery of creative visions in future.

189 Critically Endangered Birds of the World

Rare Bird's Year Book 2008 has been published recently which can be bought here. Since I contributed a few images of Indian Vultures (subspecies of Long Billed Vulture) I got a complementary copy of the book. Initially I was happy to see a few of my images in the book but soon I realized what the book is all about - for me it symbolically stood as evidences for misdeeds in this world which pushed some of these beautiful creation of God towards extinction. I hope a book like this will atleast help create awareness amoung some people of this world towards conserving them. I only wish thickness of subsequent books decreases during years to come. Part of the proceeds of each book sold (4 pounds out of 19) will go towards conservation efforts. I encourage you to buy them ! I have ordered 5 more copies as a small token of my contribution towards this conservation effort..

- Ganesh H Shankar ( Nature Lyrics )

Ramanagara Rocks - Seeing Challenges

"Ramanagara Rocks" - Yes, pun intended. Rocks of Ramanagar are very scenic. Every time I go there it offers me different "seeing" challenges. Long Billed Vultures roost and nest at "Ramadevara Betta" (Mountain of Rama). This is the best place to see these critically endangered vultures. I have seen about 7-9 of them at this place.

May their tribe increase...

Back to seeing, vutlure and its habitat offers some fantastic opportunities. Couple of images above are some attempts at seeing differently and also portraying its habitat. The below image of rock and the vulture was a non-trivial composition for me. While tracking the bird in the view finder, I found this arrangement very interesting.

**UPDATED on 11 Nov 07 ** Made this image below today at Ramanagar..

More images from the trip are at my home Nature Lyrics.

Photographying Snakes

Being a nature photographer, I think one of the tough subject to make meaningful image of are snakes. Unlike birds they don't have favourite perches to sit and pose for! They are long, unless they are made to coil getting them whole on a frame is tough, most of the time they move quickly and disappear in under-growths. I don't like lots of snake images because most of them are made in an un-natural manner - like for example irritating them to open the hood, mouth etc. Why a cobra opens its hood looking at a photographer ? Snake in a perfect clean out of focus background ? I think some those images lack natural feel.

During my recent trip to Dandeli, I tried making a few images of Common Bronze-back. I tried making images of it without disturbing its natural behaviour. One technique I learnt is just observe and make images at right time. 300mmf4 lens appears like a perfect fit for this task. It is possible we may not make images which I prefer it more than irritating them to open hood or mouth.

You can see some of these snakes (and other) images by clicking
new images link at my home - Nature Lyrics

No access to net..

I am planning a trip to my native place (Western Ghat regions). Will not be available, may be till 20th Oct. Happy Dasara to every one !!

Mimicry in Nature

During recent a trip to Western Ghats region we found this spider !! To be precise I did not see it - thought some fallen leaf on the web but my friend Ashwin recognized it ! What a beautiful spider and mimicry in nature !! Incidently only two of this kind of leaf mimicking spiders have been discovered so far in India. (Thanks to Sindhu Ramachandran who shared information related to this spider)

In this blog I talked about camouflage in nature. Mimicry serves similar purpose. Here is another superb mimicry that I was able to record again in Western Ghats region recently - Blue Oak Leaf butterfly !

We need to spot them when they are flying - otherwise they are some fallen dead leaves !!

Here is another example of an image of stick case moth caterpillar (thanks to Sindu Ramachandran again to help me id this)

Designs in nature are not only beautiful but are very functional. Mimicry is another strategy for survival adopted by life forms in nature similar to camouflage.

- Ganesh H Shankar (Nature Lyrics)

Composition - as I see it

I have been thinking about writing my views on composition. Of late my commute time to office has exponentially increased! This gave me some time to crystalize some of my thoughts during these long journeys. I got up early on Saturday to give these thoughts a shape in the form of an article. Here is the link to the article.

As always your thoughts are welcome.

- Ganesh H Shankar (Nature Lyrics)

Micro Arts

During last weekend I had to visit my in-laws house which is situated in foothills of Western Ghats bordering Karnataka and Kerala. I just carried my macro related equipments and thoroughly enjoyed the trip from photographic perspective. Mostly I spent couple of days photographying frogs, dew drops and other very small life forms. Most of the images I made during the trip are beyond life size using either 55mm extension tube (two pk-13s) on my Nikon 105mm f2.8 AF Micro lens or using 87 mm extension tubes (added 32mm Kenko on top of two PK-13s. It was just fun. But believe me, compositions are just not easy. With such magnifications we spend lots of time getting the basics of composition and dof right. At times it may be very frustrating.

Some more images from the trip are here. Enjoy !

As always, click on above images to see them in larger size (I hate the blogger's resizing algorithms which compromizes quality of the image posted).

- Ganesh H Shankar (Nature Lyrics)

Mutation, Natural Selection & Lessons from Nature

During my pre-university days I did read about Darvin's theory on evolution but at that time my focus was getting better marks than appreciating and understanding theory. Though I understood it then, I did not appreciate it. Now I can appreciate it !

I have been visiting rocky mountains in places like Ramnagar and Savanadurga. Close inspection of these rocks reveals an eco-system which has beautiful adapted to those rocks to survive. I am sure this has happened over millions of years. Look at this image of grasshopper above - what a camouflage ! How did grasshopper develop those colors and patterns of rocks ? Darvin's theory on mutation and natural selection can beautifully explain this. Mutations of genes causes changes in characteristics which may be heritable. This results in a new offspring with different characteristics. Success of this offspring in passing on its gene to the next generation is governed by natural selection - survival of the fittest. So my guess is over millions of years mutations caused changes in appearance of these grasshoppers - those inheritable characteristics which resembled patterns on rocks got passed on to offsprings which then had better survival rate. This continued and today we have a grasshopper which just can't be found when sitting on these rocks ! Nature has found a global optimum !! Here is another image from Ramnagar -

Though not as camouflaged as the grasshopper my feeling is in a few thousand years this too can't be spotted on the rocks. Here is one more from Savanadurga -

Interestingly nature is solving an optimization problem of arriving at life forms which can survive in its habitat. Scientists took this clue and arrived at an optimization technique based on this principle to solve real life optimization problems. This is known as Genetic Algorithms(GA). It is observed that GA has a tendency to settle down at a local optimum. My feeling is nature can't tolerate local optimum (look at the grasshopper!). If this assumption is true then GA is an inferior imitation of what nature does. I think nature knows best about how to cause crossovers and mutations which eventually results in global optimum. As we speak nature is working on finding a global optimum for we humans - going by current trends in all probability it may be our extinction...

- Ganesh H Shankar (Nature Lyrics - My home)

(You may click on the above images to see larger versions)

Shutter Speed

What is there to write about shutter speed ? If the speed is say 1/500sec it simply means shutter gets opened for 1/500sec and then closes - right ? Wrong !

I recently bought a SB-800 speedlight for my camera and was trying to go through sync speed related information. I wondered what is the limitation for supporting shorter sync speeds. This resulted in some reading. I read lots of articles about front and rear syncs - no where science part of it is clear till I came across this link which beautifully explained how the shutter works. With this explanation of how shutter works the limitation of flash sync speed made all the sense. This may be a useful information for you too !

(Click on above images to see them in larger size. You are welcome to visit my home Nature Lyrics.)

- Ganesh H Shankar

Picture and Personality

Images we make express how we portray what we see or what we visualize - in some sense it is "our truth". I would think deep inside such creations embedded are our own personality, our value system and our behavioural signatures. This expression may not happen during initial years of photography since we are busy imitating our favorite nature photographer in getting that clean nice backgrounds. But as we progress in learning to see things in our own way our own individual traits starts emerging and can be seen in some corner of our images - may be a pattern emerges from set of our images. Given ten images each of a boy and a girl, both nature photographers, it may be possible to correctly guess whether they can get along together in life ! In hand writing analysis (graphology) people use such characteristics like direction of writing, space between letters, cursive or not, size of the letters etc to guess personality of people. Though not proved scientifically they have statistical backing for success of such methods. I would think image analysis can be as accurate if not more.

Other day this thought occured to me and I spent some time looking at some of my favourite images to analyze them to understand how my compositions relate to my value system and personality - I could clearly see some of my known strengths and weaknesses as a human being subtly portrayed in some of my creations. Let me not talk about how I did that! - which is not the purpose of sharing this whole thought.

That said, I am not at all interested in viewing/analyzing images from that angle - my purpose in photography is to visualize and create to satisfy my emotional hunger and not behavioural analysis. But such relations appear very interesting.



Ganesh H Shankar
You can click on above images to see larger versions
You are welcome to my home - Nature Lyrics

Playing with Light

Light is essence of life so is it for photography. I had to make a quick trip to Mysore on Thursday. Way back spent an hour or two at Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary - made this image there. I had an opportunity to make this same image from the other side (front lit) but decided to spend my time and energy perfecting this image. Good thing is dragon flies return to the same perch often and stay there for quite long time. I had time to try different flash out put levels. For this image use a very little fill flash using built-in flash of my Nikon D200. Click on the image to see larger, better defined version.

Macro/closeup photography is a different challenge compared to wildlife and bird photography. The latter needs quick response make meaningful image. While macro photography needs enormous patience. Our subject stays more or less there but getting the right depth-of-field and composition is quite time consuming. We need to carefully visualize and execute. Normally I have to spend quite a lot of time to make an image. When done properly we may end with a very satisfying image.

Away for two weeks...

Last couple of weeks I was at China. Unfortunately I could not access blogspot.com. Looks like the site was blocked most of the time. I visited Shanghai and Beijing. At Beijing I went to photo mall on Wukesong road. An amazing place with more than 50 photo outlets. Ended up buying SB-800 flash. Tried Arca-swiss Z1 monobal in a shop - an amazingly smooth new ball head from Arca-Swiss - even better than my Arca-Swiss B1 (but its changed quick release mechanism I did not like it much). Prices in China are slightly more than B&H price. Language is a **big issue**. No one in store knows english. The way we communicate with shop people is using a calculator !!

They type some price, we type some other price... after some amount of binary search we will agree upon a price -:). If you have to communicate some thing which goes beyond capability of a simple calculator(!) then you need to write them in english on a piece of paper. Very interesting experience indeed..


OK, finally back home y'day night...

Western Ghats in Monsoon

Two weeks back me and Ashwin Bhat visited a few places in the Western Ghats region. We visited Gudavi Bird Sanctuary, Jog Falls, Unchalli Falls, Sathoddi Falls and Magodu Falls. From a photography perspective it was a very good trip. I learnt a few important lessons. I was very interested in capturing Monsoon mood inside deep jungles of Western Ghats. It was an amazing experience. But capturing the mood in images and photography in general was not yet all easy. We (VMR, Ashwin and me) spent some good amount of time in rain inside the jungle near Unchalli Falls. Inside the forest, blood sucking leaches were every where. There were ticks, mosquitoes.. you name it. Yet the desire for capturing the Monsoon mood stood above all these. I just got away with three leaches climbing my legs.

I must admit I did not succeed in making some images which I had visualized (will reserve them for next trip - may be) but there were interesting lessons. First I was not prepared for taking care of myself and equipments. Lenses were fogging very quickly, lenses and cameras were getting wet, during trip to Sathoddi, my Lowepro bag got exposed to rain. Fortunately I had a plastic bag inside the side pouch which prevented water getting inside the bag. Leaches were every were - I was often thinking about them than about photography. At the end, I got used to it. Light was not at all ideal, exposures were very tricky - light meter may or may not help. Challenges were many - so were opportunities. But I could not make use of it fully. Hopefully next time I will be better prepared.

Some more images are at my home Nature Lyrics

Processing Feelings

Processing our images keeping in view of feelings portrayed - My new article is here at -

http://www.naturelyrics.com/articles/process_feelings/process_feel.html

Hope you may find this useful and let me know your views.

Thank you !
Ganesh H Shankar (http://www.naturelyrics.com)

Creation Vs. Capture

In nature photography, most of the time capture aspect takes precedence over creation. Creation needs seeing an image with eyes closed - images are made in the mind while capturing process needs patience and wide open eyes. While the above image is an example for capturing the nature, the image of part of a cactus leaf probably qualifies for creation.

Please click on each of the images to see them in larger size. In the current size you may not be able to appreciate what I am talking about..

What are your thoughts ?

- Ganesh H Shankar

http://www.naturelyrics.com/