Found Things

The images in this set of things, were found by me over the years, in the various national parks that I have visited across the world. A small background information for each one of them is listed below for whoever is interested in reading about them.

The images are presented against a plain black backdrop in a B&W and coloured set first, to notice the differences that colour can make to an image, and then in the final set with natural golden light against different backdrops. For this section I have taken my images and put them within a frame of a vintage polaroid frame. The individual exif information is given with each image and the common camera info and settings are:

Camera Settings

• Nikon D5
• ZEISS Otus 55mm f/1.4 ZF.2 Lens | ZEISS Otus 135mm f/1.4 ZF.2
• ISO 100
• Aperture Priority Mode
• Exposure decreased by one and even two full stops to get the correct exposure
• f1.4 | f2

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Kindly click on the image/gallery to view full size images.

The Final Set

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Found Things – The final Set

1. Fig 1- Pigeon Feathers –  These were the first feathers that I actually found in the jungle (2002). Although they are one of the most common ones belonging to a common pigeon, but they are special to me as they mark the beginning of one of the most important part of my life’s journey.

2. Fig 2- Guineafowl feather – This feather that belongs to a helmeted Guineafowl marks my very first trip to Africa in 2010 to Kruger National Park. These birds were quite special looking and when I found a feather of theirs on the ground, I took it to keep it as a remembrance of my maiden journey to Africa.

3. Fig 3- Porcupine Quills – These three porcupine quills were found over a period of several years and two of them are from Samburu, Kenya (2011), and Ruaha, Tanzania (2012), both national parks in Africa. The third one is from an Indian jungle in Kanha (2014).

4. Fig 4, 5 & 6 – Namibian Stone 1,2 & 3 – These are very unique stones and belong to an area that one passes through while headed to Swakopmund and then to the skeleton coast; locally referred to as the ‘soul destroying road’ due to the barren landscape and a gravel road that goes for more than 100 miles in the vast Namibian desert. This is an area where a perfectly healthy mind begins to see illusions and mirages as one drives along. With barren landscape as far as your eyes can take you and without a single soul to be seen or a single thing that might point out human existence, it is often referred to as the soul destroying road because thats what people say it does to them. I quite enjoyed it as I put some awesome music and drove through this area in what is simple a remarkable ecosystem that one can only believe exists when one experiences it. I had an extremely learned and knowledgable guide who was accompanying us and he stopped in the middle of this vast barren desert. He was known to give us valuable lessons through our road trip of one month starting with the Kgalagadi and all the way trough the great Namibian desert till we reached Etosha.

As he stopped the car, he told us to go collect some stones and come back. We were very skeptical but went ahead and collected these strange looking stones. When we came back, he told us that during one of his several trips through here, he once spotted a Cheetah here. To find a Cheetah in this landscape was indeed a big surprise even for him and then subsequently he also spotted a couple of Springboks, an African antelope. This led to various questions in his mind as this area does not have any vegetation, water or trees – all this area has is these small stones. There is no rain for years in this area and the maximum if it ever does receive is not more than 5mm, that too perhaps in several years. He researched for a few years about this area, came back to study it and during all this he discovered that these special stones have little plant like growth on them, full of protein, vitamins and minerals which the antelopes eat off the surface of these stones to take care of their food and water needs; that is why he had seen those two antelopes in this area and the Cheetah as well. It blew me away. Please click on the image and zoom it to see this incredible wonder of nature and the hostile environments that life exists in. I carried just three of them back as a memory to these amazing wonders of nature.

5. Fig 7- Tree of life stone –  This unique stone which actually has roots on it was a stand alone stone that I found in Namibia as well. This is from a different place but the markings on this stone and the fusion of a plant reminds me of the tree of life and the ridges on it must have taken at least thousands of years to form. A unique marvel of nature.

6. Fig 8- Dried Wild Flower –  This flower that has been in my book for more than 25 years ago belongs to a forest area known as the Jim Corbett National Park in India, one of the first parks that I visited and have been going to since the last 25 years. This flower is a purple wild flower that grows there once in a season and my wish was always to photograph a Tiger amongst them. Although the flower is several years old, my dream shot of a Tiger amongst these flowers only came true last December.

7. Fig 8- Ostrich Egg – This abandoned Ostrich egg was found by me in 2012 in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, Africa. It was just a shell and probably was picked up by a hyena or some small predatory mammal from a nesting site. I watched it lying in that place for all the four weeks that I was there for and eventually when I was convinced that it was empty and no one was coming to claim it, I picked it. It sat in my collection for several years until I took it out to photograph it for this assignment. Like it was literally waiting to be photographed before it shattered.

8. Fig 9- Raven’s Feather –Ravens are not very popular with people in general and especially in India where they are considered ominous and bearers of bad news. To me they are one of the most intelligent birds. I always wanted a feather of them and somehow amongst all the others that I could find, even rare ones, I never found one of them. Then one morning as I woke up in one of the jungle lodges, I found this one lying next to a water body and it has stayed with me since then.