A few months back I made a mention that as part of the documentation project I am working on I’d be presenting a series of short films that covers different topics primarily intended to be in the book. So we’ve (Chinmay and I) been thinking of different ways to develop the story-line that doesn’t stray too far from the coffee-table book, but at the same time encompasses all (well, almost all) of what we intend to cover for the book. So we broke the video stories into story-book chapters and we’ve now completed the first of the series -
Chapter 1 – Kaziranga: The land of the rhino and the tiger.

Initially it was only – Kaziranga: Land of the Rhino, but after spending nearly a month here and capturing not just the rhino but an amazing amount of Tiger behaviour in a habitat that’s not really conducive to proper tiger observation, I decided we had to change the title! Not only that, Kaziranga now has the uniquely distinct position of having the highest density of tigers in the World! Previous studies had put the density at about 17 tigers per 100 Sq. kms., but recent studies suggest that the tiger density is at a whopping 32 tigers per 100sq. Kms. Sighting one, of course, is a totally different story. Kaziranga’s tall grass and thick woodland, makes it one of the most difficult places to see a tiger, although signs of their presence – scats, scrapes and claw marks on trees, makes their presence very evident.

Another unique aspect of these short films, is that they were shot entirely, well almost entirely, on the new breed of HD-DSLR cameras that allow us not only to take a high-resolution 16+ mega-pixel image, but also allows the user to record HD video in full 1920×1080P resolution the quality of which is outstanding! Not only that, the high-ISO capabilities of cameras like the Canon 1Dmark4, allows for filming late into the evening, when previously sequenced would have to be canned before they were put in the can. So armed with these new tools in my toolkit I went out with a small team of people consisting mostly of my field assistant, Chinmay and Lahaan the forest gaurd, to shoot the first chapter in the series.
For now I’m just posting a short intro, as I’m still in the field with painfully slow internet connections and frequent power cuts. We are now getting ready to head out to Arunachal Pradesh to shoot some of the little creatures that make a living in the foothill forests of the Himalaya.

Please keep an eye on FelisTV on Youtube for more videos and shortly – the full version of what you see in the Intro piece.
http://www.youtube.com/user/feliscreationsindia

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.

It’s been two months since I’ve left home base – Bangalore. The first stop (after Guwahati) – Kaziranga.
Spent two weeks in this landscape before the rains.
The highlight – Tigers!
Filmed some amazing natural history and behaviour of tigers in Kaziranga. Short film coming soon about that.
For now, here’s a picture:

Soon after, Chinmay and I headed to the remote region of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh. We were here looking for Munzala – The monkey of the Deep Forest. This is one of the most recent primate discoveries. More in detail about that later – but here’s an image for now.

Then after that crossed over to Nepal to look for what is, without any argument one of the cutest little creatures of the Himalaya – The Red Panda…

It was an arduous climb up and down the Himalaya at the foothills of Kanchendzonga. But it was all well worth the effort. Now in Sikkim to photograph the Rhododendron flowers which are in full blossom at the moment.
here’s an image of what they look like in Sandakphu – with a background of the snow-capped Kanchendzonga mountain range…

More about everything later…
Another month of travel to go before heading back to Bangalore

I was all set to write a blog report of just how awesome this last month of travel across the Eastern Himalaya had been… How amazing the wildlife of Kaziranga had been and how we’ve managed to finish editing a short wildlife film shot entirely with HD DSLR Cameras… But all that will have to wait until next time I’m in Internet zone.

For now – quick news update -
Mountains of the Monsoon is all set to release on Mutual of Omaha’s – Wild Kingdom shown on Animal Planet US – Sunday 18th April 7PM. Do spread the word…

Here’s a link to the trailer:

If you’d like to learn/read more about the Western Ghats – the region where this documentary was filmed and also the inspiration behind getting this film commissioned check out – Sahyadris – India’s Western Ghats – A Vanishing Heritage.

Now I’m off to look for a species of macaque that was very recently described as a new species. It’s called Macaca munzala – Monkey of the deep forest.
More about that when I’m back…

- Sandesh

One of my favourite forms of photography using DSLR’s is to produce timelapses of everyday scenes. What’s timelapse?

As wikipedia says, “ Time-lapse photography is a cinematography technique whereby each film frame is captured at a rate much slower than it will be played back. When replayed at normal speed, time appears to be moving faster and thus lapsing. Time-lapse photography can be considered to be the opposite of high speed photography.

Processes that would normally appear subtle to the human eye, such as the motion of the sun and stars in the sky, become very pronounced. Time-lapse is the extreme version of the cinematography technique of undercranking, and can be confused with stop motion animation.”

So here’s a compilation of timelapses produced on various models of Canon DSLR’s over the various projects and years that I’ve been working in the western ghats.

Visit FelisTV for more videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/feliscreationsindia

We’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting to launch Felis Creations’ own online nature and wildlife channel for a while, but there was always a good excuse to not launch it… no time, not enough content, yadayadayada… But now with 2010 having rolled in, we figured there’s no point in simply waiting. So here it is – FelisTV.

A good bit of content has been added here already – everything from educational videos produced for the Gorgas Science Foundation’s outreach program to clips of Indian wildlife and excerpts from the latest documentary programs we’ve been busy working on. Every month we are going to attempt to upload a new video related to nature – some may be a bit boring…. but educational and some fun but pointless. We appreciate your patronage, comments and feedback and look forward to actively uploading videos that will help inspire people to conserve the beautiful and wondrous natural world around us, thereby living up to the company’s motto – We Create to Conserve!

In the latest video, we’ve put together a showreel of sorts combining footage from the latest films and travel. Showreel edited by Chinmay Rane.

It’s the weekend coming up and I’m sure everyone has one thing on their mind – to Get the Hell Away… Away from the hustle and bustle of traffic and the maze of bureaucracy and hypocrisy… and go far enough away to not have to deal with any of it… well, at least for the weekend.

Enter – The All New Mahindra Scorpio Getaway, the perfect vehicle to get you out there… away from it ALL (actually it’s not really new – it was released on Indian roads about a year ago) but anyhow… Well in advance I knew after having worked in the field for many years, this was the vehicle that would have to be a substitute for my dream vehicle – The Toyota Hi-Lux 4WD.

Well, this, is Mahindra’s answer to the Toyota Hi-lux. It’s got all the bells and whistles, but more importantly it’s inside engine capability and it’s outside appearance and performance fall only a long tad short of the Hi-lux. In attention to small detail and user usability the Hi-lux of course maintains higher ground and I wish Mahindra would pay more attention to the little things, rather than focus on thoughtless improvements like the irritating audio system, which reminds you every time you switch off and on the vehicle, “please wear your seat belt for a safe drive” Took me forever to figure out how to shut that off, because in the field you are always starting and stopping, and it’s not the nicest thing to be hearing when you are in the midst of an otherwise quiet jungle.

Whoever named the Getaway must’ve been a Lenny Kravitz fan and probably drew some inspiration from the song – Fly away

I wish that I could fly,
into the sky, so very high.
Just like a drangonfly.
I’d fly above the trees,
over the seas, in all degrees.
To anywhere I please.
Oh,

I want to get away.
I wanna fly away. (yeah, yeah, yeah)
I want to get away.

I would work up a full report, on the vehicle, but for now, this will have to suffice… More about it later.

The video was edited by Chinmay Rane, who is the newest member on board the Felis team. Well done Chinmay!

Marketing hasn’t been our strongest forte, but we do finally have the coffee-table book about India’s Western Ghats available for purchase from Amazon. If you know anyone who may be interested in purchasing a copy please do forward this link on to them and if you do buy a book from the store, please do fill up the customer reviews to help give the book a ranking of sorts.

Cover image of book

Gorgas Science Foundation has set up a storefront on Amazon and the books/DVD are available for purchase directly from GSF or from Amazon. Soon more items will become available on this store-front, so please do bookmark for future reference.

Many thanks for your support!

Sandesh

For those of you in the United States, check out NG channel this Saturday at 7PM and watch King Cobras from the comfort and safety of your television screens! We spent nearly a year documenting the natural history and behavior of King Cobras in the wild at Agumbe. Our base camp – Agumbe Rainforest Research Station. Here, Romulus Whitaker and Gowrishankar along with Matt Goode and a team of volunteers are at the forefront of King Cobra research in an effort to help conserve this incredible species. Watch this documentary to find out more about the on-going research work and learn about King Cobras in the wild!

Brief Synopsis: He is the king of serpents: Unblinking, hypnotic, deadly, and hungry for his own kind. The king cobra, the largest venomous snake in the world, is powerful enough to kill a full-grown elephant… and yet we know almost nothing about it. Fortunately, that’s about to change.

Watch the trailer:

The SECRET LIFE of the KING is an unprecedented journey into the natural history of the wild King Cobra following them into their world revealing what they do, where they go, and who they interact with, when we are not around. And surprisingly, the people of India are very much a part of the story. Early evidence suggests that kings might be more intertwined with humans than previously thought, making this project more important than ever. Its a close and personal look into the secret life of the King and the best chance we have of ensuring the survival of this legendary snake.

I can’t believe that it’s already been two months since I left India. I haven’t made any blog updates and hardly any FB updates either! This doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing anything, it just means that too much is going on that I wouldn’t even know where to start…

The highlight of my visit back to the US so far has been the visit to Boston and DC and screening of The Mountains of the Monsoon at the Baird auditorium in the Smithsonian Museum – The premiere Natural History Museum in the United States. I don’t know if you’ve watched the second part of Night at the Museum with Ben Stiller – I haven’t, but I’m going to go watch it tonight!

Kamal Bawa – Distinguished Professor from the University of Massachusetts and Founder of ATREE – Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, spoke about biodiversity hotspots and in particular about the Western Ghats and the need for conservation across this critical landscape.

Professor Bawa’s talk was then followed by Cristina Mittermeier, Founder of the International League of Conservation Photographers who spoke about the importance of using images to help further conservation. The ILCP is at the front line of spreading conservation through education in particular through the use of imagery.  Watch the video – ILCP

Cristina Mittermeier - Founder of the International League of Conservation Photographers

And after that, the last and least accomplished – myself, did a quick behind the scenes introduction into the making of the documentary which included bits and pieces of everything from bloody leeches to elephants up-close.  This was followed by the screening of the BBC/Animal Planet documentary – The Mountains of the Monsoon. The auditorium had a lovely new projector so even though we played through a DVD, the image looked almost HD, just because the projection was so good. Anyhow, all in all the event turned out quite well and I’d like to thank all who were there, ATREE, ILCP, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and in particular to Debbie Rothberg who helped pull it all together at such short notice!