Agumbe, tipped as the cherrapunji of the South, is one of the wettest places in the world. I wanted to visit this place for photographing reptiles and amphibians that emerge out during monsoon. After missing it in last two monsoons, I visited ARRS this year. Quite an experience it was!
After a lot of thought, I dropped the temptation to drive and instead booked a bus to Agumbe. Arun dropped out at the last (few) hours of the trip. A few calls later, Hemant agreed to join. He was called in at about 6pm by other Arun. Bus was to leave at 10pm. Quite a lot of time? Not so if you are in Mumbai. 6:10pm – Mumbai Airport. 6:30pm – flight from Mumbai to Bangalore. 8:00pm at BIAL. At 9pm, Hemant is at bus stand. Roughly at about 10:15 the bus took off. Gerry, Josh, Farid and Nathan were in the same bus.
A wearing 9 hour journey got us to Agumbe by 7:30am. It was raining. Yeah, this is what you expect here. Josh and others left in a jeep, while Arun, Hemant and I looked for autos. After searching a transport for 10-15min, we decided to walk, in the pouring rain, to ARRS that is about 2-3km from the bus stand. Though excited initially, we realized the walk was not worth in the pouring rain carrying our reasonably heavy baggage.
At the camp, met Harish, Chetana and others. I was tired, thanks to my incapability to sleep in bus and thanks to my sleeplessness in the last few days. Took some rest. Then, tried out the Canon 100mm macro lens and Canon Speedlite 430EX II. I was getting used to this gear I had borrowed from Selva and Sandeep. During lunch, chatted with Harish, Gerry, Josh, Vinay and others and later ventured out for a ‘walk’ with Gerry.
I was expecting to walk around the camp, maybe venture into wood, but not walk in a stream for 2-3kms! It was fun, no doubt. Provided incredible photo opportunities as well. Gorillapod came in very handy to capture some long exposure shots.
I still was checking out the locales and was tring to shoot a timelapse, which was coming out fine until someone started walking on the log that i was resting my camera on. Here’s a peek:
Chetana in yellow, Gerry in green, Farid in blue boots, Nathan in black and Dhamini crossing the stream. I had to cut short my shoot and continued the walk. It was an incredible test for my new woodland shoes. I thought of the quote ‘While you own something, no matter what it is, use it as hard as you can and enjoy it.‘ and moved ahead.
The water level was changing as we walked, and the algae coated stones/rocks were slippery. It was raining perpetually. Good test for EOS 450D and 18-55mm I thought. I had tucked the cam under my rain jacket when not shooting. My confidence with rain-handling-capabilities of my cam grew as we walked more and more. I begun to use it without much care. Stupid mistake! A sudden drop and rise in water level. My foot went a feet lower, and my cam took a dip. That’s the end of it!
I had switched off my cam, fortunately, when it took a dip. Got back to the room to dry it. The worst part of the place is that nothing dries, not even your hand kerchief. Not even the fire wood, I realized, as it took considerable effort to lit the fire.
Since my camera was unusable, I had to borrow Nikon D90 when we found a Malabar Pit Viper. On one had, I was disappointed to have my camera dead while on the other I was excited to see this snake.
Malabar pit viper, waits patiently at a spot for its prey to pass by
I did not spend much time looking for frogs since I didn’t have much incentive (of photographing), we did find many species of frogs.
On Saturday, we went to a small waterfall that was close to the camp. The opportunity to create different images are infinite here, only made difficult by the perpetual rain. Day and night we were able to find a variety of frog species: Borrowing frog, Bronzed frog, Bi-colored frog, Ramanellas and many others. There were out there, one just needed the eye to see them.
I was keen on photographing Rhaco, that was one of the reasons I was at Agumbe. Friday night we weren’t successful in finding it, but Saturday we got lucky. Thanks to Ben for finding the Malabar Flying Frog. Hemant shared his Canon 1000D, and I could capture a few photographs of Rhacophorus malabaricus.
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Malabar flying frog – uses the webbings between its toes to glide or fly
We had found a Vine Snake on Friday night, but couldn’t photograph. On Sunday morning, we found another one that I could photograph. This little one got threatened and wanted to scare us away.
Notice the black and white scales on it’s body. What otherwise is a well camouflaged green body, it changes to scare away its predators – our cameras in this case.
Green vine snake – threat display
There were plenty of other interesting insects, especially the ones Ben was able to find – a foot and half long stick insect (I had never seen a stick insect longer than 4-5 inches), a whip scorpion, Vinegarroon, that emits vinegar when threatened. It was exciting to see Caecilians, limbless amphibians, that stay underground most of the time was also very interesting to see. It was unfortunate that I didn’t have my camera at my disposal for photographing these.
But I did have Hemant’s camera when we found this Praying Mantis
Praying Mantis – Notice the pseudopupil (black spot that appears on eye) – it appears to follow you as you move
I packed up by late afternoon. My camera showed signs of life after a day and half in the dry room. It had not been resurrected fully, but I was sure it would survive. Though at times felt this could be the excuse to buy 7D, I am glad my camera survived when I reached Bangalore and dried it.
Here are few more images:
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You don’t have to be brave, you should just look
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Though I couldn’t photograph much, I got to understand what to expect on my next visit, probably next monsoon.
P.S.: Photographs here are captured on Canon EOS 1000D, Canon EOS 450D, Nikon D90, Canon 18-55mm IS, Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM, Nikkor 70-300mm VR, and Canon Speedlite 430EX II.
Nice writeup with superb images, I actually took a virtual trip with this blog. Surely want to visit ARRP with all these pros & cons, how is your gears now…
The last image is my favorite of the lot. Nice write up.
Superb Images!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How did you [and everyone else] shoot in the rain?
How do you get a black backdrop in the images? [Is it something you did while processing or is it something that happened inside the camera itself?].
You shoot in rain the same way as you’d shoot when it’s not raining :)
Camera and lens can take little rain and water, especially your SLRs. Need to put it under jacket/umbrella and turn in off when not shooting.
You get the black background when the difference in exposure required for background and the subject is more than 2 stops (or something close). Here I was exposing for the subject that were lit by Speedlite. Background didn’t have much light and needed more exposure that wasn’t given. So, got the black background.
Also, Rhaco images were shot at night. So naturally the background was darker than speedlite lit subject.
Yes, that is something that happens inside the camera :)
I was going to ask the same question as Priya. awesome pics as usual :)
I so envy you right now! I haven’t been able to go on my monsoon trip yet. :(
I mean i did, but the rains evaded me.. :D
Nice shots as usual.. I am thinking of buying one speedlite as well..no clue if it will be useful at all for landscape photography though.
It will not be
Fabulous photos – my faves are the frog photos and the mantis. Really nice!
Val
Very nice photos man.. really got the green and wetness in the photos.
Thanks Kalyan. I was so pissed off my cam died on first day itself.. Glad to have got friends who didn’t mind sharing their cam :)
I heard you lost your job? You should consider taking up photography full time.. superb pics. :)
Oh man.. Haven’t lost job! :)
Thanks anyway
Simply amazing snaps. You’ve inspired me to go for a DSLR. What are your thoughts on the Nikon D5000?
I LOVE YOU and your pics!!! :D It just brightened my afternoon.
I love the snake, little brave fellow huh?! :D
Thank you so much for sharing with us.
Awesome pic’s!
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Absolutely stunning and you have a creative for the right angle and pose,sharpness clarity excellent. You are crowned as a professional photographer.
sandeep fantastic job with the snaps wish u good luck for some more……
Great snaps, Agumbe and surrounding region (including my home town Karkala) . We get lot of rain, very very hard to go out in rain. Great you took some courage to shoot in that condition.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shivanayak/tags/monsoon/
The photos you had taken are excellent. Really these photos remind us of natural beauty. In kerala also you can see a good natural beauty.
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