Snake Photography- a challenge and risky fun !

MISSION: SAVE INNOCENT SNAKES AND IGNORANT PEOPLE WITH MY CAMERA

We all know that `an image is worth thousand words’!

So, I decided to accomplish my mission by educating people about snakes and snakebite, basically to make them comfortable with the presence of snakes, through good quality photos. I strongly felt that good photos will show snakes like a model is shown as a handsome thing, thus hoping that the hostile attitude of common man may get friendlier towards snakes after seeing their beauty through my photos. I strongly believe that good quality images of snakes will bring out their attractive features to the fore i.e. colours, eyes, skin texture, shape, flickering tongue, etc. So far, I have been encouraged by the remarks and comments of the viewers of every quality snake image I have shown to public.

I am sure, this endeavour will save the snakes from being misunderstood as most dreaded animals. There are reports that in pre-independence India, government promoted extermination of venomous snake species from certain areas. This indicates how hostile we can be against innocent creatures, without even making an attempt to understand our neighbours who cohabit this beautiful planet Earth. I do not blame the commoner squarely, as he struggles to have access to basics for his living. It’s the government agencies who have to organise the right material and effective strategy, which has had glaring failures in the field of `nature conservation education’ so far; will to do quality work is missing at all levels.

My endeavour will be to bridge the gap between the `innocent snakes and ignorant people’, through well written literature containing good information about snakes alongwith high quality images; common man needs it the most to join hands to `SAVE OUR BEAUTIFUL PLANET’.

In fact, my interest in snake photography germinated out of necessity. About a decade ago, when I commissioned the Snake Cell at Chandigarh, I felt that I need to produce literature which could educate common man to understand snakes & snakebite. The first thing that came to my mind is a poster, which should have photos of the Big Four and some other snakes to make people comfortable with the looks of snakes. I also realised that this literature will not draw attention of majority of readers, unless its a high quality production. As I have mentioned in my first line itself that `an image is worth thousand words’ , I further say that `high quality image which is esthetically done is worth million words’. I am a quality buff ! At that point I was doing very basic photography and had NOT done any snake photos. So, I decided to take help of snake experts and snake photographers, whom I knew. I knew that even if I tried my own camera for snake photography, the images will not come out to my expectations in quality. I tried by appealing almost to all snake experts whom I knew, I did not get any photos of quality from anyone. Though, I would like to mention here that Dr Indraneil Das, was more than willing, but he had signed a contract with few publishers for his books, so he could not contribute. And he was working in Malaysia till recently. If he had been in India, I could have requested him to do special photo shoots with snakes, to help produce the much cherished poster.

Finally, I said, “What the heck, why I can’t do photos of snakes, so what if I am poor at this stage”. Which I even assumed about wildlife expert photographers as well, being poor at snake photography. I started trying my hand with snake photography, my models have always been the rescued snakes, and as the time passed by, with practice I started getting reasonably good photos, eversince I am improving. I am happy with the results.

Here I would like to advise you to be careful when you are buying any camera equipment which you have not used before, must refer existing users. I bought Canon macro lens 180mm L series and a 2x converter to compliment it, alongwith a Canon Ring Flash MR 14-EX. Soon, after some photography with snakes, I discovered that ring flash had no role in snake photography for me. Also, I realised that snake photography can be done with other lenses i.e. tele-lens, wide angle lens, etc. Most people think that snake photography means macro lenses.

Now, I love doing snake photography, though I have a long way to go, before I can make my snake photos as stunning for quality. I am dreaming to do some quality shots for the `snakes & snakebite poster’, which should be able to stop any passerby with its quality of images.

In the past, whenever I posted my snake photos to my Flickr account, I used to get mails from viewers who were curious to know how to go about snake photography. I have explained about snake photography on the internet, as much as I know, nothing has been hidden. I love to share my experiences and knowledge with everyone. So, this will be an honest endeavour to disseminate knowledge about snakes through my camera lens.

Snake photography is not at all difficult, provided you know the snakes well (like you are supposed to know your subject well, in any case for photography), you have a competent snake handler with you, follow the safety instructions, suitable camera equipment, etc.

Many Flickr viewers have commented on my snake photos there that I am gutsy, bold, brave and what not. I do not agree with all that. Fact remains, when you know about snakes well and about the consequences of snakebite, you are more scared and respect snakes more ! Its a matter of practice and knowing your subject, keeping in mind the safety.

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Snake Photography- a challenge and risky fun !

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