Bat's Habitat (Schneider's Leaf Nosed Bat)

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Ganesh H Shankar
Bat's Habitat (Schneider's Leaf Nosed Bat)
First, my sincere thanks to Kiran & Samad who helped me a lot while making this image.

While working for the book on Daroji ("Daroji - An Ecological Destination") we spent good amount of time trying to photograph these bats in one ruined temple of Hampi. Needless to say we need some special techniques and equipments to make images of them at night. We tried to work out our lighting condition such that the habitat (the temple ruin) and the mood is also gently shown along with a flying bat. We thought lighting everything using flash would kill the mood but we wanted a gentle flash on the bat. So carefully wired flash in such a way that only bat will be lit by the flash. To light up the piller and ceilings we used candle lights and oil lamps (in retrospect I think that wasn't a good idea). But then it wasn't reaching at all. So thought of light painting the pillers using torch light. We set up the exposure at 3 seconds. The entry point of bats were guessed and reflective infrared triggers were wired to sense its flight in the night. Flash would go off for about 1/250sec but the shutter would remain open for 3 seconds. During this 3 seconds interval (after the bat got exposed) I would sit in the middle of the darkness in the frame and light paint the pillars and ceilings using a warm torch light. I have also another image below.

I must confess however that the results did not match the efforts that we put in. However, it was a huge learning in terms of pre-visualizations and working complex/careful settings that we needed to use. All these experiments with remote triggers taught me an important lesson - while we can eventually master the technical challenges and 'get the subject in frame' it will need deeper further thought process into pre-visualizing how can we fill our frames with life and emotions when we use such unmanned techniques. I hope to focus on that aspect of making images using remote triggers in the future. It will be an enormous challenge.

If you have reached reading the description till here thank you :) !!
Sun Sep 16, 2012 8:44 am
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Ganesh H. Shankar
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Ganesh H Shankar  Joined CNP On 24 Apr 2008    Total Image posts 973    -   Total Image Comments 7904    -   Image Post to Comment Ratio 1:8    -   Image Comment Density 38     -     Total Forum Posts 956

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Comments

Commentby Adithya Biloor on Sat Sep 22, 2012 3:08 pm

I have done light painting a few times, can imagine the difficulty and calculation required to do that (which is I think the most easy part of the image compared to other set-ups and calculations used). Rest is beyond my imagination.
Brilliantly thought and executed.
I agree with others on the red light demanding more attention. But then again it gives a feel how the temple was looking in it's glorious days.

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Commentby Vikas T R on Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:49 pm

What all supposed to be expressed is all told by others :) i dont have any words to express.
The thought process, visualization and execution and everything is beyond my imagination. I dont know, how many times i have visited this page from last few days.

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"The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity."
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Commentby Raviprakash S S on Mon Sep 24, 2012 10:51 pm

Artist, Human computer working together to come up with such masterpiece.. Hats off to you Master.. Speechleess!!

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Commentby subramanya_ck on Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:12 pm

Uff.. this is beyond my imagination !!! I can see the pillar through it's wings... hats off sir

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Commentby Prashanth Sampagar on Wed Oct 03, 2012 10:22 pm

What a creation, Ganesh! Amazingly beautiful. I'm just trying to imagine the pre-visualization, planning and of course technical excellency to execute this shot. But to be honest I'm not surprised by this masterpiece, because of the highest standards you have set. One thing which I have noticed over couple of years of joining CNP is that, the level of interest at which you have made this image, same level of interest you show towards commenting/guiding the younger photographers. Truly inspirational. TFS this masterpiece, Ganesh!

Regards,
Prashanth

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Commentby preyaskeluskar on Tue Dec 18, 2012 9:52 pm

What a treat!!! Second one is a better frame... Out of the world execution!!!

Commentby Deepak G Pawar on Fri Oct 24, 2014 10:25 pm

Ganesh ji,its a good effort,drama in the image is fine,technically to make it easier,i feel a Multiple exposure,would have made it easier.
One shot without the flash connected
Second shot with all the Flash connections,with Barn doors to Flash,just to control the spill.
Good Effort Ganesh ji.
Bests
DGP