Jayanth Sharma – Photo Talk #6

This week, I interviewed Jayanth Sharma, a wildlife photographer based in Bangalore, India. His website www.wildlifetimes.com is also a forum for people to discuss and spread awareness about wildlife, along with showcasing Jayanth’s photography and a place where he publishes his trip reports. From his website, “The aim of Wildlife Times apart from showcasing Wildlife Photography, sharing Trip Reports, triggering discussions on Conservation; is to promote Wildlife to the common man and make him understand the true meaning of Wildlife.” You can also find his photos on Flickr.

Read on to find more about Jayanth.

Photograph by Jayanth Sharma, All Rights Reserved.
(Please click on the image to see a slide show of all images in this interview)

SU: Tell me a little more about yourself. How did you get into photography?
JS: I am from Mysore – a beautiful city in Karnataka, India. My father is an artist and commercial photographer who also ran a commercial studio apart from his regular job in the University during the 80s. He also conducted weekend courses during those days when I spent all my time playing games as a kid. The studio dark room was the best hideout during the hide-n-seek games and the studio was my playground at times. Though I was familiar to all the terms and equipments being used by him, I hadn’t really thought of the camera very seriously till I was twenty. I visited the Bandipur national park during 2001 and realized that I could utilize my father’s expertise, skills and knowledge to my benefit and also towards my niche area of natural history photography.

Photograph by Jayanth Sharma, All Rights Reserved.
(Please click on the image to see a slide show of all images in this interview)

SU: What drew you towards wildlife photography?
JS: It was a gradual attraction towards nature that happened over years and the affordability of equipment which was required for Wildlife Photography. I also realized that I was now traveling in a direction where I couldn’t directly involve myself with wildlife conservation, but I could try using photography as a tool to convey messages to the world. So it was a sensible utilization of resources, knowledge, finance and passion.

SU: What is the idea behind wildlifetimes.com? How did it happen? Why a group format as opposed showcasing your images only?
JS: In 2006, I declared that I would no longer treat photography as just a hobby or an activity done at leisure. I decided to make time for it and I have a lot of plans with WLT. I chose a brand like WLT rather than a personal website because it was no longer about me and my photography. It was about a conservation awareness initiative. There’s still lot to do. But the perspective is getting clearer.

Photograph by Jayanth Sharma, All Rights Reserved.
(Please click on the image to see a slide show of all images in this interview)

SU: What does photography mean to you?
JS: It is a wonderful medium to capture moments of nature that is treasured forever. It is also an important evidence to various glimpses of nature we photographers every day see. Wildlife Photography has two broad perspectives – Artistic vs Documentary. I try to document the characters and the drama they are a part of and when I stumble upon an opportunity to document the drama artistically, I make sure I try my best to milk the opportunity.

Photograph by Jayanth Sharma, All Rights Reserved.
(Please click on the image to see a slide show of all images in this interview)

SU: You are a well known name in India when it comes to wildlife photography. How did you get here? How do you manage a photography career as well as one in IT?
JS: My actual audience is the common man. He is the one who has to understand what I am trying to showcase. In that context, I would think I haven’t found all the success yet. Instead of 10 photographers appreciating something I did, I’d love one common man to get inspired to do something to save this planet. That’s probably more satisfying.

IT vs photography is quite possible to a large extent. But on some day I will have to stop traveling on two boats at the same time and I see that happening soon. It is quite possible to be a serious amateur photographer and manage an alternative career. But if it is looked at a professional perspective, then reality bites hard and the ultimate choice has to be made. As far as how I got here – I just kept learning fast and never hesitated to make the right investment at the right time. I forgot to tell one important thing – A wildlife photographer has to get to the wild frequently and that I surely do without any hesitation though it costs quite a sum.

Photograph by Jayanth Sharma, All Rights Reserved.
(Please click on the image to see a slide show of all images in this interview)

SU: Any recommendations? (Photo techniques, Photographers, Music, Books, quotes, food..anything?)
JS: I love Padmashree T.S Satyan, a pictorial photographer who is one of the few photographers who has been honored with the Padmashree title and is from Mysore, my native. He is quite old now and doesn’t fail to inspire me even after inspiring my father a few decades ago. I also look up to photographers like France Lanting and Andy Rouse who have a lot to teach. Not just photography but also how to present it to the audience.

These days, more and more youngsters are submitting themselves to the beauty of nature and some of them even do more than just clicking pictures. I strongly recommend newbies to the field to first spend time to learn about their subjects and also about their cameras. The rest will follow.

“When nature has some work to be done, she creates a genius”

SU: How can people interested in your work contact you?
JS: jay@wildlifetimes.com

Thanks Jayanth for sharing your thoughts.

[poll id="2"]

June 20, 2008 | Categories: Photo Talk | Leave A Comment »

James Adamson – Photo Talk #5

Ama Dablam Ridge, Nepal. Panorama by James Adamson, All Rights Reserved.
(Click on photograph to view larger)

This week’s interview is with James Adamson a photographer, videographer, journalist, rock climber, mountaineer, guide. His website is www.adventurerefugee.com and you can read his blog at www.adventurerefugee.blogspot.com. James is a globe trotter, his most recent international trip was to Nepal. His focus is slightly different in that he is involved not only in photography but videography too. Read on for some very interesting stuff from James.

SU: Tell me a little about yourself. How did you get into photography?
JA: I’m a 28-year-old mountain guide from San Francisco. I grew up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Northern California where I work today. I got “in to“ photography by way of my uncle Roger Lieberman. He has influenced my work greatly with his art but he has also shown me and participated in my own artistic ventures. Our mutual admiration for artists like Ansel Adams and Galen Rowell has helped me form my own take on landscapes in the mountains and cities that I’ve seen.

Ice Fall, photograph by James Adamson, All Rights Reserved
(Click on photograph to view larger)

SU: Can you talk about your travel photographs? What do you look for? How do you manage the equipment load?
JA: I love to climb mountains so that is why my landscapes are my best work. I climb up there to see them and then bring them home to look at later. It’s taken me a while to master the hand held pan (panorama). Many of my pans are 10 photos long. The light coming through the lens must be right because it is easy to over or under expose these shots.
I don’t carry that much equipment. I see others with large loads but I use two small cameras. When I buy equipment I spend hours researching it on line. I find the best thing for the job. In Nepal I used a Canon G9, great camera. Small, light and versatile it took great pictures. I also used an old Canon Optura 500 for video. Both cameras had extra lenses and batteries.

Photograph by James Adamson, All Rights Reserved
(Click on photograph to view larger)

SU: How do you manage to mix photography, videography and outdoor adventures so seamlessly in your life? What makes this heady mix work for you?
JA: While in college I was the Multimedia Editor for the SFSU newspaper the Xpress. It was under the direction of Andrew Devigal, now an editor for the NY Times, that I really started to mix several different aspects of news-gathering together. It has always been my dream to form comprehensive and stimulating experiences for the Internet user through the mixture of still photos, video, music, narration and interviews.
I like technology and I don’t mind taking it with me in to the mountains. I try to take pictures while the events are playing out. It can be hard some times when your hands are frozen. It maybe most difficult when your belaying your partner and your trying to bring home the goods.
I tend to need time alone on expeditions so its good for me to walk off and find hidden lake and streams that reflect light. I get in the zone when my environment is rugged and highly contrasted.

Photograph by James Adamson, All Rights Reserved
(Click on photograph to view larger)

SU: What is your next photography project?
JA: Well, right now I’m trying to put together a collection of pans for a show at the new rock climbing gym in San Francisco. The pans are large and its taken time to gather funding and a group of owners who are willing to lend back their prints for the show. I’m also working on completing the Nepal slide show material, mixing media, and trying to draw out a story. It’s been a challenge.

SU: What does photography mean to you?
JA: Taking photos of the places that I’ve been are like a visual journal of my trip. I think that audio, photos, and video provide a sort of taste and smell when they are mixed together. Each component-providing stimulus. My pictures make me feel like an artist in the age of digital. I am deeply committed to my best photos and I’m not exactly sure why.

Photograph by James Adamson, All Rights Reserved
(Click on photograph to view larger)

SU: Any recommendations? (Like Photographers, Photo techniques, Music, Books, quotes, food. anything?)
JA: In the high mountains use beer cozies and hand warmers to keep your cameras warm, even inside your jackets. Video cameras suck up high so take special care when using these is freezing temps.

SU: How would people interested in your work contact you?
JA: I can be contacted through my website Adventurerefugee.com… james@adventurerefugee.com

Photograph by James Adamson, All Rights Reserved
(Click on photograph to view larger)

Thanks James for your thoughts and time.

[poll id="3"]

June 13, 2008 | Categories: Photo Talk | Leave A Comment »

Darwin Wiggett – Photo Talk #4

Photograph by Darwin Wiggett, All Rights reserved.

Here is this week’s interview with Darwin Wiggett, well known photographer, author and teacher. His beautiful and versatile photos can be found in http://www.darwinwiggett.com. He is also the author of books on landscape photography and pet photography. His books can be found here. He has also written many articles on photography. It was his article on the Canon G9 point and shoot camera which encouraged me to take the plunge and buy one. Darwin also conducts many popular workshops. Information about these workshops can be found here.
Read on to find out a bit more about Darwin Wiggett.

SU: Tell me a little about yourself. How did you get into photography?
DW: Before I was a photographer I was a biologist and all I ever wanted to do from the time I was a boy was hang out in the wilderness with critters. I naively thought that biologists just spent all their time in the bush – boy was I wrong! As a biologist I spent about 8 months a year writing proposals, doing reports, analyzing data and only about 4 months in the field doing biology. In 1986, while doing biological research, I read “The Photography of Natural Things” by Canadian nature photographer Freeman Patterson and was absolutely amazed by the photos. I was 25 at the time and I immediately bought a Canon AE-1 program and a 50mm lens. That summer of 1986 I spent taking pictures of everything I could while doing my field research. I took dozens of rolls of print film. When I got all the stuff back I was hugely disappointed. My photos sucked! But in the stack of hundreds of photos were two pictures that were pretty good! Those few good photos spurred me on to try harder. Soon I became more interested in photography than biology and I spent all my free time taking pictures and reading about photography. After a few years of pure addiction to the hobby, I decided to try and make a living by taking nature pictures – man was I naive about how easy that would be!

Photograph by Darwin Wiggett, All Rights Reserved.

SU: Your photography includes a variety of topics such as landscapes, wildlife, people, urban-scapes, pets etc. How do you go about finding a subject without getting locked into the thought mode of say “nature photographer”?
DW: I just shoot anything that interests me. I don’t limit my photography to what will sell or what others want to see. I just shoot subjects that move me. For example, on one of my photo tours we were shooting a beautiful ice-fall in the winter. Some ice climbers showed up and some of my students turned from shooting the ice-falls and began to photograph the ice climbers. Ice climbing is interesting but what I found even more exciting was a Border Collie that one of the climbers brought along with her. I photographed that dog for 40 minutes and was super pumped by the interaction with the dog and the photos I made. I like to engage with my subject and the dog was the most easily accessible and interesting subject for me to engage with at that moment. A real ‘stock’ photographer would have spent time with the climbers, and made images that were more sale able than a border collie in the snow! I shot the dog cause I loved the subject, the dog made me happy and the interaction was great. I got the name of the owner and told her I would send her some photos which I did. A month later she contacted me and told me her dog died of cancer and the photos I made at the ice-fall are among her most treasured possessions. Life is short, shoot what you love. If you can make money doing that great, if not, at least you are not wasting time doing stuff that does nothing for your soul.

SU: Can you tell me a little bit about the work-flow you use in optimizing the photographs to your vision?
DW: I have a vision of the final photo in my head the moment I press the shutter. The camera sees differently than the human eye and so often I need to manipulate the contrast of the scene to match the way we see with our eyes. Film and sensors can only record limited contrast but the human eye sees detail across a large range of contrast. I rely heavily on filters like polarizers and ND grads to help me capture scenes the way the human eye sees. Sometimes in post-production I apply further contrast control (dodging and burning or HDR techniques) to further finesse the image to make it look more like I remembered the scene. Most photographers keep too many of the photos they take. I delete 90% of the images I make. I keep only the top tier images that I think represent what I felt and saw in the field. With fewer images to work, I can spend more time to get them to look the way I remember the scene. I would rather have fewer solid images than many mediocre ones. I think many photographers would be better off by deleting more of their work to concentrate only on the best stuff.

For my work flow in post-production I use Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CS-3 almost exclusively. For images that have lots of saturated reds or yellows I will use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional to process the images as it does a better job with those colors than Adobe ACR.

Photograph by Darwin Wiggett, All Rights Reserved.

SU: What does photography mean to you? And how does teaching photography affect your own personal work?
DW: Photography is about communicating the way I see the world with others around me. I am a shy person and I do not like to draw attention to myself. With photography I can have people look at my work and see who I am with out me having to talk to them!

Teaching is great because in the end I always learn more than my students. I get into formulas and ruts about how things photographic and students always shake up my preconceptions by thinking ‘outside the box’. Teaching workshops keeps my vision fresh and seeing people excited and inspired is contagious and gets me all excited as well. Positive energy breeds more positive energy and after a workshop I am totally pumped!

SU: You are a part of the team at www.timecatcher.com. Can you tell me a little more about the group, and how did your involvement in it come about?
DW: This is a great group of talented and totally inspiring nature photographers. I was lucky enough to be invited when a former member decided to withdraw. I see this group as a the new generation of landscape photographers that are gonna take the world by storm. I happen to be the ‘old guy’ in the group but hopefully I can live up to the reputation they have established and add some value to the group. When I look at the photos by the other Timecatchers, I am totally humbled.

SU: Any recommendations? (like Photographers, Photo techniques, Music, Books, quotes, food..anything?)
DW: Not really, I don’t think photographers should try to emulate anyone else. Rather our job is to find our own voice and our own style – you can’t do that if you just copy what others have done before you. You gotta try out lots of techniques and shoot lots of subjects to find a working method that best expresses who you are. The more you look at good photography, the better you will understand what works and what does not. This stuff is art, so there is no right or wrong – only expression. If as a photographer you are happy with what you created, that is the ultimate goal and reward.

SU: Can you mention how people interested in your work can contact you?
DW: Sure just go here: http://www.darwinwiggett.com/contact.html

Thanks Darwin!
For those folks interested in reading another interview of Darwin Wigget, checkout this post in Bill Lockhart’s blog.

[poll id="4"]

June 6, 2008 | Categories: Photo Talk | 6 Comments »