Exploring wildlife through photography

The penchant for wildlife photography made KR Sushmitha Reddy, a 33-years-old software engineer, stand unique in the pilgrim city to which she belongs. She became the first international female wildlife photographer from the temple city after camera became her kaleidoscope.

She always had a craving for a sense of mystery and awe with which she plunged into the adventurous passion in 2016 only after putting in tons of efforts in convincing her parents.

During her new journey, this marketing professional at a Bengaluru based management consulting firm, fell in love with nature and started to click everything that gives her a sense of joy. After realising there are so many species in the animal kingdom whose numbers are drastically dwindling she shifted her focus to those rare species which exist in extreme conditions and remote areas of the world.

Sushmitha recorded and documented species like snow leopard in the Himalayas, Gelada monkeys and Ethiopian wolf in Africa and lots of other species. "I then realised that it's still not late to act on it, so that our future generations need not look at Lions, Elephants, Giraffes and many others in books like how we see dinosaurs today", she averred.

Though photography gives Sushmitha express herself artistically, she found wildlife photography more exciting because there is always a surprise element in it and with wild animals, one needs to work hard to get good images.

Understanding animal behaviour is essential to being a good wildlife photographer. Sailing on two boats happily she dons the attire of wildlife photographer during weekends and holidays while concentrating on her job in the remaining days.

She could not forget the moments of clicking a snow leopard in the Himalayas sometime back as it was very difficult to get acclimated to the higher altitudes, being stranded to a landslide and facing many hardships. She clicked beautiful photos of hundreds of rare species by spending months together in dense forests.

"A portrait of a lion was my favourite image as it was my close encounter and head on meeting such a great animal. It just felt like we were communicating with each other and the experience that I cherish forever", she recollected. She made an in depth study into the lifestyle of animals and their search for food in the changing atmosphere.

She had a few achievements to her credit. She was a finalist in wildlife photographer of the year organised by the prestigious Natural History Museum, London and her images from wildlife and nature were exhibited at djmocofficial 2019, an annual competitive photography contest. Many of the photos from her camera found place in several exhibitions across the globe.

"The images are a celebration of joy that we have diverse wildlife around. I would like to record them for posterity and bring in that awareness that we can still do our bit to conserve our nature", Sushmitha concludes.