An update on LW

Finally, images on Landscape Wizards can now be purchased for various purposes. We have decided to open up the images for sale and now Nature lovers can not only enjoy them on web but on the walls of their living room or in the board room as well!

You can check out the 'Sales' section in the Landscape Wizards to get some more information regarding the criteria for pricing etc.

Feel free to contact... :)

Cheers,

Ash

On the route for the last time

It was our final day in Kazi. The morning elephant ride was very fruitful. We had a wonderful experience of the misty morning which I wanted to have from the very first day. Now we were on our way to the Eastern Part of Kazi as our last safari.

 On the way to the Eastern zone we had to cross paddy field area. Last time when we went there we had seen a big flock of parakeets resting on the tree beside the road. We were expecting the same flock to be present at that place as parakeets normally dont change their daily habits and routes.

For our surprise this time they were not on the trees but in the fields, busy in picking the paddy grains and other cereals. More and more were coming from various directions and joining the party. It was a sight to behold.

At one point of time there were nearly 500 birds in the flock. It was still growing. We all had a wonderful time photographing them. Shooting the flock to make good compositions is always a challenge for me. I think I have failed again! :(

If you were following all my posts of Kazi trip from the beginning you might be knowing that we had visited Eastern zone before as well. It is mixture of various types of habitats. It has woody region, it has lake bed, it has patch of grassland and it has river bed as well! So there are chances of seeing fauna in various types of habitats.

As we were heading towards the river bed, we noticed a huge tusker on the grassland beside a lake. It was quite huge and had very attractive long tusks. Kunwar declared that it will be coming to this part of the lake to cross the road where we were standing. We were a bit apprehensive on his declaration as we thought that it was too early to predict that. But that is Kunwar! He stopped the gypsy and told us to remain very silent, and he just slid onto his seat and closed his eyes as if he was preparing himself for a short sleep... ( in fact he was :) )

We were observing the huge guy. He slowly started showing the interest in coming to this side of the lake. He was trying to find a suitable place where he can cross the lake. After about 15 min, he was on this side of lake, beside which there was a road where our gypsy was standing. Kunwar then decided to move the gypsy a bit forward, to allow the tusker to cross. Doing this had another reason as well. The same guy had charged the previous day for one of the gypsies. As it is very difficult to escape in the reverse gear in case he starts charging from front, Kunwar proactively cleared the way for the tusker to cross the road. It was an intelligent move and that can come only by experience. 

After about another 15min the tusker slowly climbed up to the road and there he was in front of us! He was a bit nervous and immediately crossed the road and disappeared into the woods on the other side.

As we moved ahead we saw a lonely elephant calf! The poor child was desperate to find its herd. The forest guard who was coming with us in the gypsy told us that the herd must have left this calf intentionally! We were surprised to hear that as we always thought elephant share a very complex and deep social bonding and are very protective about their calves. Guard told that this calf must have some disease because of which the herd must have abandoned it so that the disease will not spread to other calves in the herd! It was a totally new information for us! 

The calf was looking very weak and it was roaming alone in the zone of tigers. Don't know what happened to that poor calf afterward.

We hit the grassland but the sun was already harsh. It was about 11:30AM when we decided to leave the place.

We came back to the resort, had our lunch, packed our stuffs and loaded them onto the Jeep to start towards another wonderland - Nameri.

See you there soon!

Cheers,
Ash

The morning mood of Kazi

So here I am with the report of our final day at Kazi. I have to explain it with the help of two posts because of two reasons. One, the images of morning elephant safari carries a totally different mood and I don't want to mix those images with the rest. Second, otherwise there will be quite a number of posts in a single blog post with very less words along with them. So I have decided to have two posts for the final day.

When I was planning for my Kaziranga Trip in the winter last year, the thing that I was dreaming about was that of an image where a Rhino will be grazing in the green grassland with a morning misty mood around. But on all the four days by the time we entered the National Park it was 7:30AM onwards with no mist around. We were also helpless because the Park opens only by 7.30AM! So I was terribly disappointed. What made me pissed off is when I came to know on the fourth day that the elephant safari starts at 5:30 in the morning and I have only 1 day to go for that. :( All the time I was thinking that the elephant safari also starts by 7:30AM as no one is allowed to enter the Park before that. But in truth the elephant safari takes a different route (obviously!) and it starts at 5:30AM! I had inquired with  many people while making the tour plan but all the time I had forgot to ask this one information which proved me very dear!

 So finally I was in the grassland in the wee hours of the morning and the atmosphere around was very misty and moody. I was overjoyed by the scene around and simply enjoyed it for quite some time.

 Many people don't like shooting from elephant's back. The angle will be that much interesting and you cannot change the angle. It was first time for me to shoot from the back of an elephant.

It was a new experience and I was kind of liking it. In my images I made sure that I make the images of fairly distant objects with wide angle perspective so that the matter of angle can be eliminated as much as possible.

 The sun was not yet there in the horizon and the moon was still dominating the sky. But the light of the dawn was already celebrating its presence. It was a very unique moody atmosphere that I experienced there. For my good fortune we found a rhino grazing calmly being oblivious to our presence.

The flocks of egrets and mynah had started to fly in the sky declaring that they can see the Sun at the horizon. Slowly the bluish mist started to become yellowish and within next 10-12min the golden light of the Sun was glowing everything around.

It was a wonderful moment. Enjoying the sunrise in the midst of elephant grassland is an amazing experience. The mahaut was very co-operative and told good stories of the elephant which was carrying us. They all call that lady as "Phoolan Devi" :). This is because all the rhinos are afraid of this lady and they normally don't come close to her, otherwise many a times rhinos charge elephants. Phoolan Devi's calf was following us all along and it was very funny and enjoyable seeing how happy that cute calf was.

I had always heard that how tall the elephant grass is but here on this day I really experienced it. It is virtually impossible to know what is there just a couple of feet away! To give you people a comparative perspective, in the below image the people are actually sitting on the back of an elephant and that elephant is no less huge! :)

Our ride ended at 6:30AM and I was very very satisfied with the way it went.

self in the front, Anush in the middle and Adithya U N in the back

This is what I had imagined before planning the trip here and finally on the very last day it had come true - Kazi in the winter morning mood.

Cheers,
Ash