Last week an image I captured while shooting in the North-east garnered the top spot in the category – Community at Risk at the 2010 ICP Awards in Seattle, Washington. It was quite an honour to receive the award and have the image displayed at the Burke Museum of Natural History. If you are in the Seattle area please do stop by the Burke Museum as the display will be up until the 6th of September. The other highlight of my trip here was an opportunity to meet several of my photographer colleagues, Chris Linder, Jon Conforth and renowned photographer Art Wolfe – the founder of the ICP awards and an incredible photographer! If you want to learn bits and pieces of photography visit their websites and be inspired by what you see. Amazing Stuff!

I was lucky that my return trip to Texas coincided with the opening night, so I took a bit of a detour on my way back to Texas. Stopped in Seattle, took a quick trip to Mt. Rainier National Park courtesy my host Raja, Deepa and Rushil. Thanks guys!

Canon 5D Mark2 with Canon 500mm f/4 lens; Gitzo Mountaineer Tripod; Kirk BH-3 Ballhead f/4@ 1/250 ISO 100

About the Image: I had always heard how relatively common the Greater Adjutant Stork Leptoptilos dubius- a critically endangered bird was at the garbage dump near Guwahati and I wondered how a bird so commensal with man and dependent on human garbage could be so endangered. Upon visiting the landfill I saw how patiently they awaited their turn at the garbage table – every time a fresh truckload of rubbish entered the landfill people rushed to it first, and once they were done with their pickings the storks moved in filling their gullets with rotten meat. I still wonder how this species living so calmly in an urban environment can be so endangered… I later found out that it’s not because of a lack of food resources that this species is dying out, but because of a lack of nesting trees. These large birds need relatively large trees to build their nests and with the expansion of highways and lack of protection of nesting trees, the future of these birds seem very bleak indeed.