THE WAIT…..
Wildlife photography is to me, the most fascinating activity a person can have. It is filled with enormous pain and cherished smile. Around the age of 10 or 11, I used to build small wooden boxes to hang on the branches close to the window of my old house in Mount Lavinia Sri Lanka, to keep fruits to attract birds. It worked really well and I use to observe the birds by using my uncles binoculars. My passion for nature really came like that. Gradually my intensions were built to go for a camera. The first camera was brought when I was just around sixteen (Minolta SRT 303b with a 200 mm Tele lens).
Each & everyone have their own style of capturing wildlife photos. I have my own. I always try to put more distance in the picture to have more breathing space in the final result to have something more constructive. I always make sure to put more importance on the environment or play of light, rather than the animal itself. I would like to take a picture of a common bird in a beautiful environment rather than a close up of a very rare bird. It is my passion.
Wildlife photography is to me, the most fascinating activity a person can have. It is filled with enormous pain and cherished smile. Around the age of 10 or 11, I used to build small wooden boxes to hang on the branches close to the window of my old house in Mount Lavinia Sri Lanka, to keep fruits to attract birds. It worked really well and I use to observe the birds by using my uncles binoculars. My passion for nature really came like that. Gradually my intensions were built to go for a camera. The first camera was brought when I was just around sixteen (Minolta SRT 303b with a 200 mm Tele lens).
Each & everyone have their own style of capturing wildlife photos. I have my own. I always try to put more distance in the picture to have more breathing space in the final result to have something more constructive. I always make sure to put more importance on the environment or play of light, rather than the animal itself. I would like to take a picture of a common bird in a beautiful environment rather than a close up of a very rare bird. It is my passion.
Always remember that there are two sides in wildlife photography. The vulnerability and safer sides goes hand in hand in this field. An elephant is a powerful animal. In size it is huge, massive and very intelligent specie. Sometimes you feel so small when faced with the power of nature. When it is in few meters front of you and when you hear its breath, you will not know what next going to happen. When a wild elephant looks at you, there is an incredible intensity which will give you shivers. The only machine what I have is to escape if the crisis become verse is my Demak DTM 150 Dual Purpose Adventure Motorcycle.
There are moments when you take photographs where the atmosphere or the light is really beautiful or the moment is so calm that you just need to be in harmony with the environment.
There are moments with the serenity, when you are just waiting without really seeing time go by and that moment you are completely disconnected with the rest of the world. You only pay attention to the surroundings of the Mother Nature. That is so cool and I cannot express this to another until they experience that moment. Some people see nature as completely a separate thing from their lives. What they do not realize is that they are also a part of the Mother Nature.
When I arrived in new location for the first time I do not really know where to start. Finding your bearings always seems to take such a long time. You walk kilometers and kilometers, sometime all alone, and you start telling to yourself that, at the next turn you will see what you are waiting for and it may fail. It can be another five kilometer walk and still you may not achieve it. To me the wildlife photography is a cat and mouse game. We may try to find them and they may try to hide from us. ‘”PATIENCE” is one of the key things to have in this field. Also you have to endure the starvation and all that pain what comes with that word “PATIENCE”. Without patience you will not be able to capture the glimpse of nature. If half hour, and hour passes and you will be really been fed up and wanted to leave the hide thinking it is just not going to work. It takes large amount of time, and sometimes one week to take a shot and you know exactly where the animals do appear.
When I am on trip and it is been a day or two and haven’t taken a single shot, and then I ask myself, why?, and what I am doing here?, wouldn’t be better at home with my mother a side rather than walking and crawling on mud and dust?. Why you have to go through agony? Will the rest of the world appreciate what you are doing? When challenges accumulate it will not hold you back. Every pain to me is an extra bit of motivation to what I am looking for. The next hour or day everything might change. Sometimes the Mother Nature is so unpredictable and spending two or three days you may see nothing. But very next day it will BOOM right in front of you. It will provoke so much of emotion. It will be such an intense moment, and it is a moment that will last just thirty seconds, one minute and sometimes five to fifteen minutes, whole day of waiting and all depends, how Mother Nature is going to give that moment to you. Person who understands Mother Nature will understand the behavior of hers. At least you will have some kind of a clue and then you have to anticipate what will happen next. Once that most waited CLICK is done all the difficulties what you had disappears and you will have that micro instant of life that you wanted, and I always think that i am privileged because I am the only one to witness that moment and the final CLICK is what captures all of that, and that, and that is the shot. The wait.
Thank you for reading
Dhilip De Alwis
