Photography by Neville

The Great Escape

I’ve been a very on and off user over at Flickr for many years now. After joining BNG Birds group at yahoo I have become a more frequent poster at Flickr as a lot of other photographers I know also post up there. It’s a nice and simple way of getting a wider audience and more comments.

For regular visitors of my blog there are more images there that didn’t make the final cut and end up on the website. So do take a look at some of my other shots over there too.

http://flickr.com/nevillel

Comments are always welcome!

Since my recent foray into the world of Bird photography I’ve been meeting a lot of birders on-line and also out in the field. One of the best places to meet like minded people is by joining the BNG Birds group on Yahoo Groups.  It’s a relatively simple matter of just signing in and joining the group. Once thats done you can see what birders in your area (Bangalore) are up to.

The group also has various trips on almost every weekend to places which are known for the variety in birds. I’ve been with this group to Nandi Hills, Shivanahalli and Anekal. In these trips I’ve basically learnt a lot more about birding than I would have going out by myself. I’ve seen and spotted many more species of birds and become better at identifying calls of certain birds.

There are a lot of great people who you can meet during these trips and its definetiely worth checking out. Catch you at the next BNG Birds trip!

A very nice Q&A with war photographer Teru Kuwayama. I found it very interesting and eye opening. Check it out at:

Ask a Pro: How to Shoot (and Not Get Shot) In a War Zone

Neat article here: Top ten annoying things to say to wildlife photographer, I’ve been lucky so far ! I’ve heard my share of such comments but heck what do I know? I’m still learning so maybe until I reach a higher level I won’t be complaining.

Here are a few more interesting articles that I’ve come across this week:

• A very neat piece about bird photography by Vijay Cavale at his blog which you can also download.
• I also found a couple of great sites for bird watchers and photographers  in India. Here’s one I’ve registered and become a member at:  India Nature Watch (http://www.indianaturewatch.net/). Another one is Indian Birds (http://www.indiabirds.com/). Lots of great user submitted shots on both those sites and a lot of great information for all level of photographers
• Since I’ve taken an interest in bird photography I’ve been looking at all the different lenses that I could buy to get closer to the birds without getting closer (Yes, this is just another excuse to buy an expensive piece of glass.) So here’s a nice write up of the pros and cons by Sandeep R. Here is his piece about the different lenses he was looking at buying before he made his purchase: Super telephoto lenses under $1500 for bird photography.

Well that’s about it for today. Hoping to go to Mysore this Wednesday and hopefully everything will be back to normal there. Here is a shot from a lazy Sunday spent at Lalbagh in Bangalore.

Spot-billed Pelican

After a long, long. long wait I’ve managed to get myself a Nikon D80 DSLR camera. I’ve been using my trusty old P&S camera for almost 3 years now and have taken some of my best images with it. Now that I’ve had the D80 for about one month I must say the wait for the DSLR has been worth it.

The first time I used it was at the press event for the unveiling of the Royal Challenger Cheerleaders in Bangalore. I had barely touched the camera because I was so intimidated by it, but I had carried it to the stadium. My official photographer was stuck at another event on the other end of the city. So I had to pull out my camera and start shooting.

Having about 50 some photographers at the event along with at least 15 camera crews all around me was intimidating. All most all the photographers had 2 cameras hanging around their necks along with an array of lenses which they kept switching. People kept pushing each other around and the fact that we were supposed to stay about 5 meters away from the Cheerleaders didn’t help matters much.

I realized that there was no point waiting and being nervous so I just took out my camera and started clicking away.  I was caught in the horde of photographers who were yelling at the event organizers while others were asking the Cheerleaders to turn this way and that. I just went with the flow and just kept taking pictures. I got yelled at for being in the frame by a couple of photographers but I realized there was no point being sorry because the event was a free for all and we had to take what we could get.

At the end of the day I was very happy with the work that I had done. I got confirmation of my good work when I managed to sell some of them to a web portal and the fact that my images will be used in two magazines in Bangalore, 080 and Explocity. A veryhappy moment for me but also a time to sit back  and realize that I need to learn all I can about my camera and photography. Also I need to stop being so nervous about what people are thinking about me when shooting!