Tiger photography workshop

[willy0102]

So yesterday me & my buddy who is also a amateur photographer(just like me)were having a random chit chat .so one thing lead to another & we landed to a decision to do some wildlife photography , he told me about a person " Sudhir shivaram "& the tiger photography workshop he is conducting in Ranthambore india which facinated me . So please tell me have any of u guys heard about him ? how is his work & all .. ?

[djdister]

If anyone has any large format shots of tigers, you'll see them posted here ...

[Peter Lewin]

Willy: Surely you have heard of google? I tried it, and found out quite a bit about Mr. Shivaram. I hesitate to post anything, because I don't understand why you posted your question. And as Dan pointed out, tiger photography with a view camera is an unlikely proposition, but this is a large format photography site. Mr. Shivaram is under contract to a well-known camera company, but one that has no connection at all to large format.

[William Whitaker]

If anyone has any large format shots of tigers, you'll see them posted here ...

...posthumously.

[gregmo]

I have no idea about how the workshop is ran or if the tigers are in the wild or in a sanctuary.

I started college with a path towards zoology to work with big cats. Tigers were always a favorite. I can tell you...In the wild, the odds of seeing a tiger are extremely rare. They are very seclucive animals. With only several thousand remaining in the wild…it's a long shot to see one much less long enough to photograph one with a LF camera.
Personally, if I was planning a trip & spending thousands of dollars to see/ photograph big cats. I would go to Africa..southern or eastern portions during the wet season. You will definitely see lions, perhaps cheetahs & leopards too if lucky.

[Stoogley]

...posthumously.

My thoughts exactly.

[willy0102]

Willy: Surely you have heard of google? I tried it, and found out quite a bit about Mr. Shivaram. I hesitate to post anything, because I don't understand why you posted your question. And as Dan pointed out, tiger photography with a view camera is an unlikely proposition, but this is a large format photography site. Mr. Shivaram is under contract to a well-known camera company, but one that has no connection at all to large format.


Yes i have heard of Google ..but i don't think you have heard of fake marketing ? i wanted to know about him fully before investing my money & right now i feel like it turned out to be a mistake from my side that i actually thought i could get some insides about him .I mean how can a person help me out if he himself needs help .. u sir believe everything that's written on internet which itself is a problem for u .Anyways I hope you don't need Google to understand this .

[willy0102]

I agree with you but i have all ready been to Africa twice .. which is why i wanted to visit Ranthambore .

[brucep]

Then surely you will be much better informed asking your question on a wildlife photography forum. Unless of course you are in someway connected with them and are trying some devious advertising

[analoguey]

I'm not sure in what sense 'sanctuary' is mentioned earlier - most, if not all sanctuaries in India are forest areas without boundaries and in the wild. None are safari-parks where animals are herded into specific areas and are easily visible for tourists. (if that was the interpretation)

Ranthambore is a large National park(about as Wild as you can get, I suppose). IIRC it hosts the second biggest number of tigers after the (contiguous) national parks in the south. And usually touted to tourists as *the* place to see tigers easily.

Of course, spotting tigers requires luck. There's supposedly a tourist friendly bunch there - haven't been there myself.
Other places I have been to, haven't really had much luck spotting tigers.
Also, there are some safaris on Elephant back.

Don't know if it makes a difference but the Clintons got to see a family of tigers when they visited India @ Ranthambore, I think.

[analoguey]

Personally, if I was planning a trip & spending thousands of dollars to see/ photograph big cats. I would go to Africa..southern or eastern portions during the wet season. You will definitely see lions, perhaps cheetahs & leopards too if lucky.

Afaik, the only country that has tigers in the wild is India - not something available elsewhere! :-)

[Greg Miller]

Afaik, the only country that has tigers in the wild is India - not something available elsewhere! :-)

There are tigers in the wild in Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Camodia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Sumatra, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

I hesitated to comment in this thread because my radar is telling me the thread was intended to be advertising for the person mentioned in post #1.

[chris kleihege]

Dear Will,

Postprandially.

Sincerely,

Chris

[Kirk Gittings]

Yes i have heard of Google ..but i don't think you have heard of fake marketing ? i wanted to know about him fully before investing my money & right now i feel like it turned out to be a mistake from my side that i actually thought i could get some insides about him .I mean how can a person help me out if he himself needs help .. u sir believe everything that's written on internet which itself is a problem for u .Anyways I hope you don't need Google to understand this .

See this is the issue.....we see lots of posts like this that often times turn out to be shills for the workshop while pretending to be asking innocent questions. Yours sounds suspiciously like such and it sets off alarm bells to the cynics here....me being one. Seeing as how you posted the exact same question on a few different forums (copy/paste), it seems less than innocent. It looks like spam to me.

[Bill_1856]

...posthumously.

lol!

[adelorenzo]

Smells like spam!

[Peter Collins]

Quote Originally Posted by Will Whitaker View Post
...posthumously.
My thoughts exactly.

Uh, posted here only if the last thing the victim did was re-insert the dark slide....

[MDR]

Couldn't resist posting this link to glassplates made at the Chicago Zoo which are housed at the field Museum.
http://www.formerdays.com/2012_10_01_archive.html
The second one is an Image of a tiger. The Goerz Anschuetz was specifically build to make photographs of wildlife during expeditions to Africa, etc....
It seems an often forgotten fact that many photographic Genres/themes which are now considered impossible to do with big cameras were done with big cameras in the era before MF and 35mm cameras (Sports, Wildlife, etc...)

[djdister]

Couldn't resist posting this link to glassplates made at the Chicago Zoo which are housed at the field Museum.
http://www.formerdays.com/2012_10_01_archive.html
The second one is an Image of a tiger. The Goerz Anschuetz was specifically build to make photographs of wildlife during expeditions to Africa, etc....
It seems an often forgotten fact that many photographic Genres/themes which are now considered impossible to do with big cameras were done with big cameras in the era before MF and 35mm cameras (Sports, Wildlife, etc...)

Well, not that LF photos of tigers don't exist, but that link shows LF photos of animals in a zoo, not in the wilds of India or Africa...

[MDR]

Well, not that LF photos of tigers don't exist, but that link shows LF photos of animals in a zoo, not in the wilds of India or Africa...

A tiger in the Zoo is still able to move is he not, unfortunately most examples of tiger lf photography was of dead animals.

[djdister]

A tiger in the Zoo is still able to move is he not, unfortunately most examples of tiger lf photography was of dead animals.

It is trivial to setup a camera with a long focal length lens to take a photo of an animal within a fixed-size enclosure - where else could they go? That scenario is entirely different from trying to capture a shot of a tiger or animal in the wild.

[MDR]

It is trivial to setup a camera with a long focal length lens to take a photo of an animal within a fixed-size enclosure - where else could they go? That scenario is entirely different from trying to capture a shot of a tiger or animal in the wild.

Take a look at the photographs made by Carl Georg Schillings during his 4 exhibitions to German-East-Africa (1896 - 1904), he didn't photograph tigers but lions and other big cats as well as other wild animals. Even more importantly many of his photographs were made at night and he did use a Goerz Ango and other Handcameras with glassplates. e.g. a leopard and a lioness http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/gutenb/schillcg/elelesch/bilder/0177.jpg http://gutenberg.spiegel.de/gutenb/schillcg/elelesch/bilder/0008.jpg

Several of his images on a flickr account (not mine) all large format slides: https://www.flickr.com/photos/40861539@N05/6939114100/

He also published a book with the title Mit Blitzlicht und Büchse (English title in Wildest Africa)

[Peter Lewin]

Gentlemen, I think this is getting a little out of hand. It began with a post that many of us think is spam, enquiring about a particular workshop for photographing tigers. Part of the response to the spammer was that this is a large format photography site, and the likelihood of anyone successfully photographing tigers in the wild with large format equipment was pretty low. Somehow we have gotten from spam to semi-debating whether one could take pictures of a wild tiger with large format equipment. I suspect the answer is yes, and MDR will provide the glass plate to prove it. But this has little to do with original post and the majority of responses to it. (I suspect that before the advent of the Leica, pioneering photographers using the large format equipment of the day managed to photograph almost anything they set their minds to, but that doesn't mean that the equipment they used was optimal for the job.)

[djdister]

I agree that this is absolutely the most stupid thread on this forum, or rather, the most stupid one that has not yet been locked by the moderators. Nothing beneficial to the LFPF can be gained from its past or present contributions (including this note). Please put it out of our collective misery.

[Kirk Gittings]

Are you doing Christmas photography ?

Of course. I am photographing a snow leopard in the wild in the Himalayas with my 4x5 Sinar......

[Greg Miller]

Nothing beneficial to the LFPF can be gained from its past or present contributions

Now see how wrong you were? It brought us a new member that specializes in Christmas photography ;)

[Ken Lee]

Thread closed.