My camera, me and the mountains

On Picture Perfect we are used to seeing photographers use controlled environments in their work, where they can control their lighting, choose an appropriate background, build a set if necessary, and of course instruct their subject…

We had the opportunity to meet a photographer who thrives on being away from these controlled environments and in the great outdoors; where one would think that you’re pretty much at the mercy of nature, because you can't push away the clouds or reposition the sun or control the weather.

But my learning while shooting with nature photographer Rajbir Singh was that the skill that distinguishes a photographer from a snap shooter and a good nature photograph from a mediocre one is the ability to problem solve, to use your photographic skill and be creative enough with your equipment to use any situation to your advantage, rain or shine.

With my crew, I set off for the mountains to see Rajbir Singh at work. We were headed for Munsiyari in Uttaranchal, some 10,000 feet above sea level and over 20 hours drive from Delhi. But more importantly we decided to undertake the journey at the peak of winter in January!

When you’re on a 22-hour road trip you will make many a pit stop and when you do, you’re often literally arrested by the beauty of the scene, by the patterns, the shapes, the textures, the colours and more than just the visual elements.

Your senses are enthralled by the sound of rustling leaves, by the smell of pine in the air changing to oak, by the wind in your face. How do you capture these feeling in the two dimensions of film? I wanted to learn, so in the many photo opportunities along the way I observed Rajbir quite closely and tried my hand at it as well.

While luck and serendipity can play some part in making a good nature photograph, patience is a vital factor; waiting for the right streak of sunlight to fall on the right leaf or the right shadow to be cast.
Rajbir said that you might want to revisit the same scene at different times of the day or even in different seasons or from a different vantage point. You might want to look for details and patterns to accentuate. Because no matter how many times you photograph a particular subject, there will always be another way to illustrate and interpret.

It’s very rare that on a shoot I’d have the time to take photographs...I don’t know whether it was Rajbir’s company or the feeling that I could touch the snow mountains or the changing colours of the sky but couldn’t help but want to click away and apply all the new things I had learnt and by the end of the day I was dying to see Rajbir’s photographs and show him mine.

There was something special about this trip for me because it combined my love for travelling through the wilderness and in the mountains with my love for photography. And I felt so much at peace with my self the entire time.

There’s certain energy in nature which you cannot intellectualise. It’s intuitive and experiential. It makes you step back and re-evaluate yourself, your life. Most importantly it helps you stay rooted yet flexible; in the way a tree blows in a strong wind without breaking or snapping and even as it bends dramatically, its roots keep it stable. I didn’t want to leave.

Leonardo Da Vinci said that, “human subtlety…will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature, because in her inventions nothing is lacking and nothing is superfluous.”