For all those who like photography, and would like to know more about it, a store in Bangalore called Pixetra, which deals in photographic equpiment and accessories, has started the Pixetra Club .

The Club had an outing to Thekkady and Periyar a while ago, but I was not able to join in. but on the 3rd and 4th of November, the Club organized another trip, this time to the Bhadra property of Jungle Lodges and Resorts , a Govt of India undertaking which has been a pioneer in Ecotourism in Karnataka for a long time now.

Here’s a pic of three people who played a major role on this trip:

On the right is Mr Sethuraman of Pixetra, who, along with three other colleagues, is actively organizing the activities of Pixetra Club. In the centre is S. Karthikeyan, Chief Naturalist of Jungle Lodges and Resorts, whose encyclopaedic knowledge of wildlife is only matched by extremely low profile. On the left is Amoghavarsha, a photographer by passion (check out his photo website ), who was brought in by Pixetra to guide the members on various aspects of photography.

One can see the variety of fine cameras that were being used, too! The cameras ranged from really professional ones to point-and-shoots…the idea being to get the camera-users to master their equipment and get the best out of them.

In this photo, one can see the attention to even the smallest creatures that was paid by everyone. A little Preying Mantis (you can see it on the leaves of the plant if you look carefully ) was the focus of several sophisticated pieces of equipment:

You can see a Canon and a Nikon at work there!

We took a safari into the jungle and were able to sight a variety of mammals and other fauna, though not all our pictures were classics!

All of us clicked away and in the evening, we each chose three images that were critiqued by Sethu, Amogh, and the rest of us too. It made for a great learning experience.

Here you can see Amogh, with his Mac laptop, showing us a few of his pictures, and explaining a few tips and tricks.

Sometimes, though, the regular steps in post-processing may not be what is required; for example I cannot crop this photo of the Indian mongoose, as close by, one can see its young. That is more important –to me– than to post-process the picture and get it “picture-perfect”.

The next morning, we went for a coracle ride on the Bhadra river and were able to sight several birds, too. We sighted some Malabar Pied Hornbills which made a pretty picture, silhouetted against the sky:

Here’s a photo of the truly pretty-as-a-picture cottage at Bhadra…

my cottage was named after the Wagtail, a very pretty and fairly common bird in Bangalore. Here’s a picture of the wagtail,that I had taken in J P Nagar, near Ranga Shankara, last month….

At the end of the morning, Karthik gave us a presentation on Biodiversity, with the help of some excellent slides:

We left for Bangalore, very satisfied with what we had experienced and learnt.

Pixetra Club organizes these meets on a non-profit basis, and aims to have such trips regularly. For more information, visit their website and if you are interested in photography, do join the Pixetra Club!