Underwater images, camera traps and drones – Rohit Varma, founder of Nature inFocus, on wildlife photography trends of 2021

Launched in 2014, PhotoSparks is a weekly column of Your story, with photographs that celebrate the spirit of creativity and innovation. In the previous 555 posts, we featured a Art Festival, cartoon gallery. world music festival, telecoms fair, millets fair, climate change exhibition, wildlife conference, boot festival, Diwali rangoli, and jazz festival.

The winners of the annual conference Focus on nature A photography and film competition was recently announced in Bengaluru. The annual event took place in line in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.

Nature inFocus was founded by wildlife photographers Rohit Varma and Kalyan Varma. See our coverage of the 2020, 2019, 2018 and 2017 editions of the competition, and part I of the 2021 edition here.

Courtesy of Nature inFocus, PhotoSparks has reproduced some of the images of the finalists and winners in this series of articles. Award prizes are Rs 50,000 (category winner), Rs 25,000 (finalist) and Rs 10,000 (second finalist).

This year, the competition received approximately 18,000 images from over 2,000 competing photographers from 40 countries.

“The challenge over the past two years has been the virtual nature of the competition and the festival. Online Events cannot replicate the excitement and energy of a physical event, ”says Rohit Varma, in a two-part interview with Your story.

“All participants being physically present at the award ceremony, the thrill of not knowing whether they won or not, or what they won, and being able to meet the judges in person – it’s a whole different experience, ”he enthuses.

This year’s jury consisted of Andy Rouse, Bahar Dutt, Dhritiman Mukherjee, Navaneeth Unnikrishnan and Rathika Ramasamy.

As trends in the field, Rohit tells photographers to explore new territories and new techniques. “We received more underwater images, camera traps and drones,” Rohit observes.

“More than portraits of species and moments of natural history, it is the aesthetically appealing and creative images who topped the list of winners this year, ”he adds.

This time, the images highlighted key issues like plastic pollution and deforestation. They also shed light on some lesser-known animal species and behaviors.

The pandemic has been a difficult time for the artistic and photographic communities. “Wildlife photographers and filmmakers love to be in the field, and in that regard the last two years have been difficult,” Rohit laments.

“As we slowly come out of the pandemic, they will certainly be spending more time in the field. We will surely see more participants for the contest next year, with a larger and new portfolio of submissions, ”he says.

“Do your research. Learn and understand your subjects. Shoot as much as possible. Be creative,” he advises aspiring nature photographers.

“We will be back with a physical Nature inFocus festival at 2022 and we look forward to meeting you all, ”Rohit concludes.

Now what have you done today to take a break from your busy schedule and find new avenues for your creative core?

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