Making Time – It’s never a premium as we think it is….
The idea of devoting time to something other than our careers and family is frankly, quite daunting. We push our interests and hobbies aside in pursuit of what needs to be done NOW. Often, most of us either don’t even get started working on our true passions, or we give up after meek attempts. The reason is mostly TIME. There is so much to do in our current lives that there is somehow no time to pamper ourselves by “getting lost” in what we truly want to do. If this sounds familiar, read on. “Jungle Chronicles” a nature photography site, is our ode to having cracked the code so that we consistently find time to be where we want to be- losing ourselves in the incomprehensible vastness and beauty of this planet.
Before we were introduced to this new world, our lives progressed in a different way- while we were getting to the higher floors of overall material prosperity faster than ever, we were left disconnected with reality. A chance encounter 15 years ago with a friend who had just got off this seemingly inescapable treadmill and had found his calling introduced us to bird watching. There has been no looking back since then. While our journey started with pure birdwatching, it’s now grown to making wildlife photos, landscape images, architecture photography and also candid people photos.
Birdwatching that started off as a weekend morning break from our hectic schedules grew into a passion to see more and learn more. Every weekend morning, for making those wildlife photos we would wake up before dawn and load up the back of our car with camera gear, blankets, sandwiches and other picnic foods. Our son -who was quite young at that time accompanied us on many of these trips, sleepily bundled up in the back as we drove on our way to a brand new adventure. In nature photography we too had found our calling like a breath of fresh air.
The eagerness and excitement to see all that we can is what has kept us going, even today. After all in birdwatching, there are over 10,000 bird species to see and getting anywhere close to reaching that number is a gargantuan effort. Being about 1/10th of our way through, this journey of making exciting wildlife photos is far from complete.
Being self-taught in nature photography we have dedicated almost all our time honing the art element of the discipline, giving the science portion a pass. Truthfully, the technicalities of the photography world sometimes go well beyond our intellectual ability. Hence we tend to stay away from it, instead focusing on getting the essential technical things right. As a wildlife photographer our passion lies more in story-telling and the experience behind each and every wildlife photo. The excitement starts from packing up the car in preparation to the still moment of pure concentration before getting the perfect wildlife image. Stepping outside our comfort zone and our willingness to experiment has expanded our repertoire today, well beyond wildlife photos to include making landscape images, architecture photography and also people photos. This has essentially enabled us to seeing all parts of the world around us.
As for the gear-related side of our craft- we are deep into the Nikon range. We use a lens line-up ranging from 14mm to 800mm and most of the pictures here have been shot with Nikon D5, D850 and current generation mirrorless camera bodies Z9 and Z6II.
We decided to name our website “Jungle Chronicles”. It is the name of our nature photography journey- a journey that started with birdwatching but has now moved on to things beyond the jungle. While our transgressions beyond the wild have been voluntary, the name “Jungle Chronicles” keeps us in check- it reminds us of where it all started and keeps us on the pursuit of birdwatching while simultaneously seeking other adventures.
To make it easier for you to navigate, we have organised the site by genre. Under each genre, our photographs have been organised by location with the logic that it would be easier for you to know what to look for should you visit any of these places.
Do enjoy yourselves at our site!
We are happy to help you learn about making good wildlife photos or what and where to photograph at the places we have been to. We will keep our site updated with new locales, so please do keep coming back. Thanks for spending time here and do think of where you can “get lost”. Making time is of least concern…
Good luck with your journey !
Uma Ganesh | Ganesh Mahadevan