Who am I? And why the hell am I doing this?
Growing up I always loved taking pictures. Every summer vacation we would travel to a new place and one thing I would never leave behind was our point and shoot and one (just one) roll of film that we had to stick to. Back in the day rolls were expensive and came with only 32 films so every click had to be well planned, orchestrated and precious. The closer I would get to 32 the more deliberate each click would become. At the end of 32, I would find a dark spot, carefully remove the film from the camera and put it in the box.
As the trip would come to a close, a gloom would begin to set in but I always had something to look forward to... get the roll developed, buy a nice album and fill it up with memories that would remain for years to come.
As I got older, rolls got cheaper and each click less rewarding until all hobbies and joys of little things faded into a 9-5 corporate life. The only occasional visits behind the lens were for capturing the early years of my new born niece with a digital point and shoot.
I moved to the US in 2011 and like my point and shoot, my love for taking pictures started catching dust at the back of my mind until 2013 when Prashant (best friend, accomplice and incidentally husband) got me my first DSLR Canon T3i. I had gotten so used to just clicking that the biggest hurdle for me was turning the dial from A to P or Av or Tv (for folks somewhere in the middle of the camera geek scale that’s Auto, Program, Aperture Priority and Shutter Priority and for absolute non-geeks that's anything other than automatic point and click). And so for a long time that camera remained a documentarian, a record keeper of our vacations.
Then I decided to take some basic lessons that helped me make the big leap from A to M (M as in Manual mode is when you think that the camera does not know what the hell it's talking about and decide to take matters in your own hands). Still exploring and looking for my niche, I used to do landscapes, basic long exposures, sunrise/sunsets at beaches, plants at botanical gardens and target practice with gulls at Liberty State Park, New Jersey.
And then one fine summer in 2016 Galapagos happened. Adorned with untouched, unadulterated natural beauty and home to some of the most interesting and endemic species. The time I spent there watching life in its true wild habitat helped me see wildlife in a totally different light. I am still in awe of that trip to North Seymour where for the very first time I stepped foot on an island that was truly wild. That belonged to the birds and reptiles and mammals and where I for the very first time was their guest. It was the first time I felt like my presence was not making the birds feel threatened. They felt safe and secure and almost unmoved by human presence. As if they knew that land was theirs. It was the first time I watched a mother blue foot booby feeding its chick. It was a feeling I knew I would never be able to express in words so all I could do was capture it on a ‘digital’ film. And this time I was thankful for a 64GB SD card being the only limit cause all I wanted to do was click away! In a way I owe my love and passion for wildlife photography to these islands.
Ever since then all I have tried to do with my camera is capture beautiful moments I get to spend with wildlife in the hope that with my pictures I can help people experience the same emotion that I get the privilege to live when I see a parent feed its chick or protect it from a predator or teach it basic life skills. With an aim to help people see wildlife in a different light..in a light that makes them beautiful, that personifies them and makes them worthy and in need of our help, protection and conservation.