My Photography Journey

Photography. A topic on which I can go on and on about, however I’ll try and make this story as short as possible.

For the first few wildlife trips, we used a point and shoot camera, and mostly just clicked record shots. We used to be happy even if we got an ear of the animal, and would say that it’s a good picture. I first started noticing the lenses and cameras of professional wildlife photographers in the Ranthambore National park. They were like huge cannons compared to the cameras we were used to. My father understood that if we wanted to continue our wildlife trips, getting a good camera would be absolutely essential. So, he got out first ever bridge camera- Sony hX400.

At first he was the only one who was allowed to use it. It was his baby, but I was always keen to try the camera myself. I finally started using it in 2015. I started practicing with birds and flowers. There is an abandoned patch of trees and shrubs right behind our compound wall, and luckily, the view from my room window is straight into the patch. So, noticing birds wasn’t very difficult.

After that I used the camera quite often, and was finally able to use it for wildlife photography in Bandhavgarh National park in 2016. I was so excited to use it, but I tried to hide my excitement so that my father believed I would take good care of it. We started realising the level of our photography was waaaaayyy less than the photos clicked from the huge lenses.

Grey-fronted green pigeon

Serpent Eagle

Dollar Bird

Slowly I started improving and my father kept upgrading our photography kit. He got a new kit, now a much bigger one. A Tamron lens with the Nikon D5200 camera. The Sony camera was completely mine now. Staying at home during spring or summer in the mornings became pretty easy, as we saw so many birds on which we could practice our photography.

Eurasian Hoopoe

We learnt together the different settings such as aperture priority, shutter speed, ISO, white balance etc. My dad tried out all these settings, but I usually used to stick to the auto mode, where the camera did the thinking and I just clicked (duh). Our photo quality improved, but I still wasn’t happy with my photos. I wanted to try my father’s kit, the Nikon kit, but it was way too hard to be in-charge of it as my father was more concerned about the camera and lens than me. -_- He was highly protective of it and did not trust my camera handling skills.

Inspite of all this he realised that I really wanted to improve my photos, and also the Sony camera was getting old. Thus in 2018, I borrowed my cousin’s camera, the Nikon P900. It was honestly an amazing camera. I loved shooting with it. Few of the pictures I have posted on my Instagram were clicked from this camera. However, soon I had to return it back as he wanted to use it too.

Brown fish Owl

Shikra

FINALLY after pleading for almost more than three and a half years I got to use the Nikon kit. The Nikon kit was upgraded now. We replaced the camera with a Nikon D500. One of the best cameras for wildlife and nature photography. For our Tippeshwar and Tadoba trip in 2020, I was completely handling the camera and was in-charge of capturing our exiting moments. To my surprise, I did much better than expected and I was overwhelmed with the picture quality.

I am still learning and enhancing my photography skills, but there is a long way to go.

Now, that I have told you all about my photography, I would like to point out a few things. If you ever go to a wildlife park, don’t just go with the agenda of getting good pictures of a tiger or any big animal. There might be a high chance that you won’t spot any. So just be in the moment. Enjoy the forest. It’s okay even if you don’t get a good shot because trust me more than that, experiencing the moment with nature is much more important.

Getting that special moment etched in your memory is much more valuable than capturing it with your camera. I didn’t realize it earlier but now I know for a fact that the best memories you make might not always be captured, but they surely will remain with you to cherish for a lifetime.

Thank you,

Love,

Tanisha.