Monday, January 23, 2012

When the circle completes, (but) in a wrong way!

Scenario 1:

It was July of 2007, when I became a member of a small expedition group to find an elusive bird - Laterite Rock Bush Quail in the scrubby and plain areas of Marikanive, near Chitradurga. Subbu sir, Sudhir Shivaram and self were there for three days looking for a bird which was sighted last time by Dr.Salim Ali in the 1940s. That particular sub specie of Rock Bush Quail was always believed to be living around that place but there was no recent evidence for its existence in the present time. We were there to bring a photographic evidence for its existence and some preliminary data about its present state.


The area was largely consisted of brick red or near maroonish soil - laterite soil. Along with rest of the photographs of some of the bird species found in the area, I had made some images of the landscape of the region which included the laterite soil to give the image a context. It was purely from the documentation perspective. After coming back I had shared that image on India Nature Watch (INW).

It was July 2007.

CLICK HERE to see the image on INW.


Scenario 2:

It was on Jan 14th, 2012. I was in a school in RPC Layout where I had been asked to be one of the persons to judge a photography competition conducted as a part of an annual event of Havyaka people in Bangalore called Pratibimba. We were given a classroom where we arranged all the images on desks before we started evaluating them.

After deciding on the winning images, I was looking around in the classroom as there were few charts hanging on the walls which were done by some of the students. They were interesting and made me remember my schooldays when we were also used to prepare these kinds of charts and posters to decorate (!) the walls of the classroom. It was an in-explainable pleasure at those days to see our charts on the wall. Nice feeling it was. I went nostalgic looking at some of those charts in the room.

My eyes went to a chart on 'Types of soils in India'. Hmm...Interesting one, I thought. I started reading the chart and that's when the photo of the Laterite Soil gave me a feeling of deja vu! I stared at it for quite some time and it took me really some time to believe that it was my photo, which I shot during my Marikanive trip and subsequently shared on India Nature Watch! Wow! (not an expression for this moment though)


The picture was pasted there on the chart after cutting it from either some book or some chart which is available commercially somewhere. It has been put to use for commercial purpose by some one who just doesn't care about intellectual property and looking for free source in the internet to make their living!

My friend Harsha Bhat, who was with me while I was staring at the picture was totally dumbstruck when I showed him the original photo in my mobile.

The image has completed a full circle - from being in my mind before I tripped the shutter, then to my camera, then to my hard disk, then to the internet, then to some print media (with some revenue to it) and finally here I was standing in front and staring at it in total bewilderment!

The circle was completed, but in a very wrong way.


Thanks Shreenidhi for the photograph.

Sad and no cheers,
Ash

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ashwini,

thats sad. Hope you can chase down the print media and yell at them. They deserve it.


-Chinmay

Santosh Bs said...

It feels good good to see our work being useful to others but what the harm in complementing the owner!
Wonder, why do we always need to steal :(