Chattbir Zoo (2015)
Canon India conducted its first ever Photo Walk in Chandigarh on 18th January 2015. The Canon Photo Walk was mentored by Shivang Mehta who is an official trainer with Canon and is also the Canon India Brand Ambassador. The theme for the Photo Walk was “Wildlife Photography” and the place chosen for the walk was “Chattbir Zoo”.
The time fixed for the walk was 9:00 AM. There is a huge fog cover in Chandigarh in January and 18th of January was no exception. The fog was so dense in the morning that I skipped the initial entrance of the zoo as the road was not visible and had to take an alternate longer route to reach the same. Anyways on reaching I was joined by other participants and our mentor Shivang. On entering the zoo we had a small introduction session and then Shivang explained the initials of Wildlife Photography and some specific tips for photographing wild animals in the zoo environment.
Shivang has a lot of experience in photographing tigers in the wild, so we first headed to the tiger enclosure where we luckily found 2-3 white tigers in a playful mood. Though the visibility was not good due to fog but we did manage to shoot some interesting photographs of these tigers.
Tiger Portraits
Tigers In Action
After photographing the tigers we moved to a small natural lake that is part of the zoo and is home to many migratory and local birds.
Along the way we had many interesting discussions on the Camera models, lenses to use for wildlife and many other photography topics which helped us gain a thorough understanding of this area of photography.
In the end we spent some time in the ducks enclosure and managed to click some beautiful photographs as the lighting had improved by this time and the fog cover had reduced.
We ended the walk with a group photo, distribution of participation certificates and discussion on the way ahead for Wildlife Photography.
The fog did play a major spoilsport but I managed to learn many important aspects of photographing in the wild. I clicked around 200+ photographs but only managed to get around 20-25 good photographs as major of these were not up to the mark due to poor lighting. I had earlier visited Chattbir Zoo around 3-4 times but never managed to get good photographs.
In the end a special thanks to Shivang Mehta for sharing his wide photography experience with us. Attending this Photo Walk by Canon was a huge learning experience for me and will help me in my future encounters with wildlife…..:-)