Since the day I started nature photography, people started asking various questions - "why do you do this?", "isn't this useless?", "isn't it highly expensive?" etc. Some have even said that I am a mad person. Although a handful of people supported, I came to the realisation that most of the common people have no clue about environment, ecology, let alone photography.
They only care about a degree certificate, career, and money - eagerly following a path that makes them a cog in the economic machine. That machine cares only about profits, and fundamentally works by extracting the life out of the planet.
Nothing else can touch such people. Pollution? Somebody else's problem. Climate change? Somebody else's problem. Food? Somebody else's responsibility. Health? What's that?
So, I don't expect to convince such people. Because you can wake up a sleeping person, but you can never wake up a person pretending to be asleep. Greed cultured in sheep mentality - that's what is driving modern common people. The "dream life" that they envision is one that is away from nature, unsustainable, and consumeristic. Whereas the lifestyle that I aspire is close to nature, sustainable, and self-reliant.
So let them go the way they go, and at some point in time, they might wake themselves up.
Anyways, here I am trying to answer some of the questions.
Is this just a hobby for you?
No, it is not a hobby. I'm serious in learning about environmental awareness, ecology, and figuring out how these things can enhance the quality of life.
Are you an environmental activist?
Nope. I am not any kind of activist. I am doing this for myself.
Are you a professional wildlife photographer?
The dictionary says, "a person who takes photographs" is a photographer. By that sense, yes, I am a photographer. But may not be professional because I don't do it for money.
But you have a website. Doesn't it cost you money?
Not much. Just the annual domain name renewal charges. I am the developer, I hand-coded this website and hosted it myself, so no extra costs. Putting up a website is a walk in the park.
Admiring nature? Isn't this all just romanticism?
Romanticism? As far as I know, romanticism is some kind of movement that happened in Europe in the nineteenth century. I think in Malayalam language, which is my mother tongue, it is translated as 'kalpankikathvam (കാല്പനികത്വം)'. I don't know much about that.
But one thing I know is, I am from **India that is Bharat**. Living in harmony with the nature has been an integral part of our culture. So for us since ancient times, trees, animals, rivers, ponds, mountains, etc are all sacred, and at the same time sustained life. They are not just lifeless materialistic resources.
Similar patterns can be noticed in many other ancient cultures of the east also. Sustainability was woven into the lifestyle. Nothing new.
However, industrialisation and brainless modernity have brought a little disruption to that spirit. Now you can see people with no civic sense, polluted rivers, concrete jungles, etc everywhere.
There is a disconnect between the past and the present. Earlier, people may lack university education, but possessed basic sense and good habits. Whereas now, people are educated, but often lack common sense. Good habits are indeed taught in school textbooks. But they remain in textbooks, rarely become a habit.
Instead, awareness and admiration should be cultivated from childhood itself through real hands-on practices. Not just rot learning from textbooks. Bird watching, nature photography, gardening, natural farming, biodiversity surveys, etc are good ways to do that since childhood.
Isn't this all useless? People can't live with this...
I have an unpopular opinion. Everywhere you can see people blaming human population for climate change, environmental degradation. Oh, there are 8 billion people, there is not enough, bla bla bla...
However I don't think so. Population is not the problem. Lifestyle is. Modern humans are trying to live a wrong lifestyle by extracting resources mindlessly. Education is also geared in that direction.
Why not reverse it? Population can also be the solution. Humans can be ecosystem builders instead of destroyers. Humans have the unique intelligence to plant and nurture biodiversity around a place. There are examples of cultures that enhanced biodiversity instead of destroying it.
Does this have any practical use?
Of course, the real use of ecological knowledge is in agriculture and farming, precisely natural farming.
We are currently living in a time when people are realising the damages that industrial agriculture and green revolution has brought to the planet. So the significance of natural farming is more than ever.
There are different types of natural farming. Zero budget natural farming by Subhash Palekar is one, Permaculture is another. There are slight differences in techniques. But the fundamental principles are the same - maintain soil health, good soil microbial population, diverse crops, natural pest control, etc. Basically, a natural farm is trying to imitate a forest ecosystem, optimized for food crops.
The knowledge about ecology and biodiversity is inevitable to achieve this. For instance, birds in a farm can naturally control pests. They can also add fertilizer (bird droppings). But for that, you need to know what trees to plant so that birds come, how to incorporate them. Similarly, insects open up another ocean of knowledge - beneficial insects, pollinators, bees, honeybees... the list goes on.
So, the knowledge about biodiversity has an immense use in farming.
Any profit motive?
All of us have learned about environment, sustainability, ecology, biodiversity conservation, and so on from at least high school level geography classes. These subjects are indeed part of the education. But very few take those lessons seriously. For some reason, these subjects have always struck a chord in me.
However, I am not a biodiversity expert or researcher or anything like that. I am just using my passion for photography to learn about ecology, because photography is by far the greatest tool, or medium, to document what you see around.
