KOCHI: A yellow panthera tigris walks majestically through the sprawling wilderness. The animal, with a steely glint in its eyes, can make one’s blood run cold, but one cannot help being mesmerised by the untamed beauty of the feline. The scene is captured from Tadoba National Park, and notwithstanding the risk factor, capturing the lives of the ferocious members of the cat family is a passion for Thomas Vijayan and his brother Mohan Thomas. Meanwhile, for Shefiq Basheer Ahammed, birds entice him the most.
‘Third Eye’, a wildlife photography exhibition that began at Durbar Hall Art Gallery from Thursday, showcases hundreds of candid shots of rare animals, birds and reptiles, all captured on frame by these three photographers.
The show offers a peek into life inside the jungles around the world. One photo shows an angry elephant in ‘musth’ running amok. “The animal made me run for a while after which I escaped,” says Mohan matter-of-factly. There are umpteen such anecdotes. A tigress tried to attack Shefiq in the Bandipur forest, while picturing the Niagara Falls from 45 degree slant was a nerve-wracking experience for Vijayan. But these experiences do not seem to have deterred the photographers in the least, with hundreds of such alluring frames being testimony to the fact.
Mohan’s lens has a special liking for the fiercest among the wild animals. The shutterbug has adeptly portrayed some rare snaps of royal Bengal tiger, a cheetah killing a deer, a Russian brown bear and a leopard. Some of the striking snaps of the photographer are two jaguars staying inside the cave and an elephant’s picture taken from Corbett. The most eye-catchy among his photos is a shot in which four tigers are seen drinking water from a river. “It was taken at the Tadoba National Park,” says Mohan. His canvases takes us to the lush and dark greens where lives red and green Macaw, owlets curled against a branch, fish eagle that dive to pick prey from the waters, blue-tailed bee-eaters and a leaping lion.
Vijayan loves capturing the elegant cheetahs and the beautiful pelicans in low light. He has mostly displayed leopards. In one of his striking picture, three naughty languors are seen sitting on a tree, while the fourth is seen swinging on the tails of others. Another poignant one is that of a yellow snail that is crawling through the solitary sands of a sea shore. The snap of a panthera tigris with its cubs is an adorable piece. From pufferfish to grey jungle fowl, humming birds to red fox on snow, the photographer has captured a range of animals, birds and reptiles.
Shefiq’s frames gives us new insights about the variety of birds that lives around us. Some charms us with their beauty, while others with some unique features. There are stork-billed kingfisher, malabar trogon, nilgiri tahr, hanuman languar, white-rumped shama, ceylon, marabou stork, mottled wood owl and a slew of many other birds. Many of the birds belong to the extinct category. Shefiq says we have much to learn from the birds.
“They like to live in harmony with man. After an age, the birds and animals let free their children, which we human beings never do,” he says.
The photographers who fret and fumble in the dangerous forests to capture the animals and birds say they do so for a purpose. “Preserving the wildlife is our motto. It is not only the duty of the forest authorities, but of every individual,” says Mohan.
The show is organised by Kerala Forest Department.
