Macro Shots

It was an oppurtunity to find the subject and shoot it using my new canon EF 100mm f2.8 macro USM. Here are the results of my experiments with macro.

Airshow 2011

Scariest feeling of an airshow held in Bangalore once in 2 years is the traffic jam it brings along. I was here to experience the same again. It took almost 2hours to reach the venue and then another 30min to walk from the parking lot to the entry gate. Huge crowd is all that I can say and I assume it would a big challenge for any organising committee to handle such huge crowd. We all know about the terror threat we have, but then I feel sad for the security people to frisk every individual entering the venue especially when its in lakhs. As expected it was pretty ordinary checking and had a feeling one could carry anything inside.

Some of the worlds best metal birds were here for display. Quite a few celebrities had free joy rides on these machines. Some of the fighters I could identify were indigenous LCA, Sukhoi, F-16, F-18, Euro Fighter, Grippen etc. The sheer sound of these machines are a huge crowd puller. Looking at some of the stunts these pilots could do, was thinking about the mindset one should have to rule the sky and how they would feel once they land back and start driving a car.

Even after trying a lot, didn't have tickets for the show until the last day. With help of my friend Harsha got 2 tickets at the last minute. Enjoyed the stalls set up by Israel, US and Russia the most. It was funny to see many people taking pictures with US soldiers. I was also surprised to learn that the Red bull acrobat team was lead by a 60 year old woman.

Just like most of my blogs narrow down here as well it was a sad scene to see so many people throwing out the trash and littering the place badly. Enough warnings were given out saying garbage would attract birds which might lead to bird hit. After looking at the mess created, I could only say most of the people visited were literates and not educated enough to understand the seriousness of the warning.

Finished with the finest performance and started heading back to parking lot at around 5. Started back to home at 6, was misguided by a policeman to take a different route in order to beat the traffic jam which lead me to explore a different part of Bangalore which I had never been to before.

Rangantittu and Kokkarebellur

It was a bit disappointing in Rangantittu, I couldn't find as much birds as I had expected. I would suggest probably February and march would be the best months to visit. However Kokkarebellur made up for the missed opportunity in Rangantittu with some good shots of photography. Also felt Rangantittu was way too expensive be it 30min boating or be it the small canteen over there. On the other hand at Kokkarebellur most of the birds are available on trees near the village and can spend as much time as we want rather than depending on the boating.

Started very early in the morning around 5am, took the usual nice road to hit mysore road and was at my usual breakfast break point Shivalli restaurant at 7am near Maddur. After some good breakfast and strong filter coffee headed towards Rangantittu. Reached there by around 8 in the morning took the first boat. I would suggest to be very early in the morning around 8 in order to beat the crowd. On a weekend this place is over crowded and for sure the boats men wouldn't take you for more than 20-30min ride. However I was pretty happy that it was pretty decently maintained even after so much of crowd. But then its our responsibility as well to maintain the sanity of the place.

Unlike Rangantittu we can spend lot of time studying the birds habitat and photo shooting in Kokkarebellur. It was interesting to observe one bird always guards the nest and the other flies to either get some food or some twigs for the nest. Most of these nests are always watched by other predators like Brown Kite or Bahamani Kites, which wouldn't miss an opportunity to pick eggs or babies.

Was surprised that Kokkarebellur village panchayat had not set up for a parking fee and toll from visitors for improvement of the place and some lively hood for the villagers. I am sure more and more people visiting this place they would think in this direction. Spent most of my time almost till evening doing photo shoot of Painted Stork and Pelicans. It was sad to see a small baby fell down from the tree top and die instantly, was not sure weather a dead baby was thrown out of nest from its mother or did it die falling down. But that's part of nature couldn't have done anything here.

After spending an entire day on field the most tiring part is driving back to home with all the traffic once we enter Bangalore.

Route: Bangalore - Ramnagara -Chenpatna - 10kms before Maddur take a left towards Kokkarebellur and drive 13kms to reach the village Kokkarebellur.

From Maddur - Mandya - Srirangapatna - From Srirangapatna take a right towards Rangantittu.

Maidenahalli

Probably for a long time I have not wasted my holidays sitting at home, but it's a surprise for me that 10days of holidays and I am sitting at home. I just proposed the idea of driving to Maidenahalli for over night camping and then a photo shoot of the black bucks early morning. Raghu and Harsha joined me for the same. It was a quick short trip.

Called up RFO Harish for permission but heard since the village had zilla panchayat elections the next day, permission was denied. However Harish heeded to our demand because of our interest and allowed us to stay at the IB by giving a letter to Tashildar asking for permission at Madugiri.

We started from Bangalore at around 4pm and reached Tumkur pretty quickly, however from Tumkur road to Madugiri is horrible. Well the better route would be to take a right from Dabaspete on the Bangalore Tumkur highway and head towards Kortagere. This road is pretty decent and also a bit shorter.

We reached Madugiri at around 6.30, took permission from Tashildar and headed towards IB. We reached here by around 7pm. On the way we were really very hungry and stopped at Puruva village for some masalapuri. Cold winter with some hot masala puri was a perfect combination for a tired soul. We had packed some food for the night, finished with it and then spent some quality time star gazing, remembered my friend Naveen who is really good at it. Planned to take him some time and learn some stuff from him. It was wonderfull experience in the open sky watching so many stars and a couple of bright shooting stars.

Raghu and Harsha picked up a room, however I prefered to stay in the tent with Jyothi. However night was not great since there was one more group of boys who were partying hard. It was surprising that RFO gave them the permission to party one day before the elections, otherwise with all respect I really appreciate RFO Harish for his work in maintaining this place and also his love for nature.

We got up very early in the morning for some good photo shoot but just like last time looks like the black bucks are very camera shy and I cannot get a good picture with my 300mm lens. However the best thing of the trip was to find some Falcons along with a couple of good picture of other birds along with the black bucks.

Team: Poorna, Jyothi, Gilli and Harsha

Route: Bangalore - Nelamangala - Dabaspete - Take a right from Dabaspete towards Kortagere - Since the road from Tumkur is in very bad shape and also its a bit long it would be better to go by this route. From Kortagere take a right towards Madugiri -- From here take Hindupura road - Kodigenahalli - Puruva Village - ID Halli

Contact: RFO Harish -- 9448731686/ Ranganath -- 8105224893

They have 2 rooms and a hall with 2 toilets and they charge 600rs for the entire stuff else 300rs for the room. However there is no facility for food, you will have to make your own arrangements for this. You can camp outside with your tents and you will not be charged anything.

Agumbe and Malpe Beach

I have seen this urbanization growing rapidly near my home town. Once covered with rain forests are giving up for human greed. Yet probably we can find one of the best ever green forests in the world. It's probably almost impossible to venture into these forests during rains due to the fear of floods, insects and snakes. Forest in these parts are so dense it gives me a feeling that even mammals avoid these place, its a paradise for reptiles. As a child i remembered a beautiful virgin lake near the check post of Agumbe, how ever I was a bit disappointed to see it being converted into a park with lots of petty shops and plastics all around. Once you start loving nature in its raw format you would for sure not like the compressed format of it like parks.



There has been lot of changes to Malpe beach as well, but it looks lot better with some good facilities. But still if we can avoid the crowd from littering the place that would be amazing, we can't just leave everything to authorities its the responsibility of the common man as well. I wanted to visit St. Mary's Island but didn't have enough time for the same.



But best part of the trip was visiting Vinayak's house and staying there. A small village Hermunde on the foothills of Western ghats in the middle of the forest was amazing. Plan to visit here again in December.
Also visiting ARRS (Agumbe Rainforest Research Station) was very educative. Would love to spend some time volunteering here. I am sure to learn a lot talking to these experts and this would also benefit me for my photo shoots. Visit this link for more details http://www.agumberainforest.com/


Also Spotted monitor lizard (near someshwara), flying lizard draco dussumieri (agumbe), grey hornbill (Arsikere) for the first time.

Route Directions:
Agumbe: Bangalore - Tumkur - Tiptur - Arsikere - Bhadravati - Shimoga - Thirtahalli - Agumbe
Malpe Beach: Agumbe -- Udupi - Malpe

Kabini with ToeHold

Kabini for long has been a place I just love and admire. Probably that's the reason I keep visiting this place again and again. However this time the idea was to learn from the masters Sudhir Shivram and Giri Cavle sir the art of wildlife photography. Well wildlife photography is all together a different ball game, so different from all other photography. Its difficult just for one simple reason that you got to get a good photograph with pure luck.

Reasons:
1) Wildlife sighting depends on your luck and knowledge about the animal/bird.
2) Lighting might be bad.
3) Getting a clean shot is very difficult, animals and birds are always behind a bush or tree.

4) Most of the animals/birds never pose for camera and being on a jeep high potential we end up with a shaky image.
4) When you get everything for a minute, having the right camera setting is the most difficult thing.