On a philosophic note can a camera ever become an artist ? Modern day digital cameras have powerful computing infrastructure within their hood. Considering computers can play and out smart humans in games like chess can’t they out smart we photographers some day and Canon’s vision really coming true ?

Here are some of my formal looking informal thoughts on possibility of camera really becoming an artist.

According to Church-Turing Thesis if there is an algorithm or a program then there is a Turing Machine that can be constructed to run that algorithm. In other words today’s Random Access Stored Program computers are bound by Turing Machine in its computing capability. So as described in the above Wiki link today’s computers can be abstractly described as a 7-tuple - . What is interesting note here is the the transition function is a finite table which essentially is heart of the program or the algorithm. Summary being capability of computers are clearly understood today in terms of capability of the Turing Machine - a mathematical model for today’s computers.

If we can describe computers using this model, is it possible to arrive at such a model to describe a human computing machine - the brain ? Is there such a 7-tuple or n-tuple that can be formulated to describe human brains ?

Today how human brain works is a big mystery. For now let us assume science in a few light years from now will find one such n-tuple representation to express human mind and its computing power. Let us also assume such an n-tuple has a transition function similar to δ shown above. One quick observation that can be made is such a transition function δ will not be static since we humans have a remarkable inherent ability to learn on the fly.

Why humans, I think even small insects’ brain is more powerful than today’s computers in terms of its learning abilities. One day I noticed a mosquito repeatedly hitting a mirror - probably seeing its own reflection in the mirror. It was interesting to know however that after hitting the mirror a few times it quickly learnt the other one is not real and went away. Assuming we had implemented a mosquito using a program and it was programmed to get attracted towards another mosquito we would have seen a bug report seeking implementation of mirror detection logic be included in the firmware of the mosquito because our electronic mosquito did not learn about the mirror at all and went into an infinite loop

The point is there is no way to code all those lessons and experiences of life into programs we write. Having studied computer science I think writing program to create art is beyond my imagination. God has designed a beautiful computing model where transition function δ (if one exists) gets changed on the fly or in other words there is a true learning on the fly. Expression of emotions and feelings are part of this beautiful yet unknown computing model.

How then computers can play chess ? If they can can’t they compose an image ?

Games like chess is a solving a search problem. It is possible to arrive at an algorithm to compare different positions and best move to make. A machine with enough computing power can outsmart human beings even though it indeed takes lots of CPU power to match the mysterious analysis a human mind makes. Problem of composition on the other hand is related to emotions felt in human minds - working of which still remains a mystery. Below is an image I made yesterday. It is an image of the cloud pattern in the sky rotated 90 degrees clockwise. I felt presenting it that way makes it visually stronger abstract image. Here we are dealing with emotions and mystery of learning which is not at all understood by science so far.

Limited imitation of art using computers may be possible but then it is only an imitation not a true creation. I think prerequisite for a camera becoming an artist is we understanding how our own brain works. Hope that happens some day - but my gut feel is it is impossible since there is a complex recursion here - mind trying to understand the mind itself.

Till then following will remain true -

I am sorry Canon

I often hear views that a nature photograph should faithfully portray what is seen by human eyes. I would agree to this if purpose of nature photography is only documentation. First of all the medium of capture (sensor/slide/negative) has inherent limitation compared to human eyes and it is theoretically impossible to portray what we see. For example there is no way I could have made an image of the above butterfly which truly appears like what I saw - either we over expose butterfly or under expose background. Obviously I decided to do latter. Isn’t this a nature photograph ? Is this a manipulation ? Should I selectively open up only background by about 2+ stops to show traces of some branches if any? Isn’t it a selective manipulation then - since people think a modification applied to an image as a whole is only considered OK ? Are we waiting for some supreme authorities to tell us what is accepted and what is not ? We have come all the way from digital is unacceptable to cropping is ok to modifications applied to whole image is ok but not to part of the images to crops, curves a little bit of dodging/burning is ok to … What is that next rule that we are waiting for ? I am not talking about placing a tiger’s head on elephant’s using an image processing software but some of us seem to create boundaries for ourselves in terms of what is accepted. Recently I was talking to a very senior wild life photographer and was telling him I am tired of seeing stereotypic images of xyz bird with feed kind of images and we need to think of something more original and creative. He asked me - “God has created everything, what is there for us to create?” - needless to say I strongly disagreed with him. We are not talking about physically creating something here - but some new perspectives that our inner vision sees and we giving it an expression in the form of an image.

I think following strict rules on what should nature photography be is killing our own creativity. I do think human mind wants to see perspectives which are beyond faithful representation of physical world.

I visited Ranganathittu Bird Sanctuary yesterday morning. Light was just perfect and sky was painted with beautiful cloud patterns. Lots of White Ibises flying in all directions. Seeing them I decided to make some images with different patterns of clouds as background. Wide angle lens (24mm) gave interesting perspectives of them in flight - rendered small in the frame with interesting cloud patterns providing a feel of these Ibises flying in their own universe. I used a circular polarizer to increase the impact of white clouds.

I have a few more images in my avian gallery. Larger images with black background seem to provide much better visual impact for these images. You may see them here in my avian gallery.

Recently I came across works of a 15 years old school kid named Nirvair Singh. Some of his work really made me think. Here are a few of his images -

Fields of Punjab

Compliments

Sunny Pearls

Shadow

Against the Sun

Can this Survive in this World

Just Before I Leave

These images and the way he titled those images made me think he has God’s gift to beautifully see the nature and more importantly translate them to images. I got in touch with him to know some more details - it appears he just got access to his father’s camera and he is learning and experimenting with it!! I am sure if he continues one day he will become a great fine art nature photographer - I sincerely wish him great success.

This triggered a thought in my mind - are several of us are born with such a skill to freely and beautifully express our visions and some where we got derailed while trying to learn nature photography ?

My little friend Nirvair has been seeing bird portraits on various internet forums for some time now. He told me he took lots of time using a blind and an 80-200mm lens to approach a cattle egret from a very close distance and made this image. This really concerned me a bit - I am not worried about the quality of the image here but I am really concerned about the photographic lesson he has quickly learnt from the net - approach as close as possible to get a frame filling image !

Questions that are currently running in my mind are -

Did our visions distort during our learning journey of nature photography ? Did we learn those attributes which went beyond techniques of using a camera and started imitating others, throwing our own God given natural visions ? Or we are not as gifted as my little friend Nirvair is ?

I hope it is the last one otherwise it really hurts

After a few unsatisfactory macro experiments today morning I decided to sit down below some garden flowers at Lalbagh, Bangalore hoping to make some different perspectives of butterflies and bees. While I could not get butterflies the way I wanted I did get some interesting perspectives with bees, flowers and a trace of a bird too in one image

You may visit this link for rest of the perspectives.

I made this above image yesterday after struggling for hours using a 50mm f1.8 lens reversed on a 105mm f2.8 Micro lens. Those who have used such reversing techniques understand very well what a nightmare it is to use such a combination in field. The main issue is the front element of the reversed 50mm lens is almost touching the subject (couple of centimeters of minimum focus distance) and extreamly shallow depth of field. The above image shows (blurred) stamens of some tiny wild flower. My first reaction was this image will find its home in my image trash since the stamens are not sharp. But the second look at it changed my views drastically. More I look at it more I like - it some how appears to my eyes as an unexplainable abstract art. May be it looks like a footprint of an animal and the color scheme seem to beautifully complement. My current feeling is sharper rendering of the stamen would have spoiled the image itself !! I hate to have a very satisfying image without consciously attempting at it (take vs make). But I must admit this is one such.

Some thoughts about abstract images - what are abstract images ? To me, an abstract image is one which evokes visual meanings or interpretations which are often unrelated to the physical world which the image itself literally represents. In art we have seen two related movements - Abstractism and Abstract Realism. In Abstractism artists use forms, colors and lines to create art work which are purely imaginary (non-representational in real world). On the other hand artists who practice Abstract Realism use forms, colors and lines found in physical world to convey something beyond or totally unrelated to the subject itself. So both form of art is suggestive (not representational) if I can call so - while one uses imaginary subjects the other uses real ones.

Can we draw a parallel to Abstractism in the world of photography since photography by definition is casting an image of some real life subject ? I do think so. The above image I think is an example of this. If I have not told you about the subject and how I made it then I think it is very difficult to relate it to a subject in the real world. On the other hand we often see abstract images of nature - most of it are examples for abstract realism. The below image of a dead tree in water is one such. Here every thing is realistic (representational) and viewer can easily relate them too but our mind (at least mine:) does not seem to be interested in spending time analyzing water and tree but mind seem to be more interested in correlating ripples, shapes, light and colors. The fact that it is an image of submerged dead tree becomes insignificant.

Isn’t it interesting how our visual systems and mind work ? Human visual process has been a mystery. Scientists have been working for hundreds of years now to understand human visual process. The results of those research are not proportional to efforts that have gone in so far. Will we ever understand how human vision/mind works ? My gut feeling says we will not because to me it appears there is an inherent recursion here - the mind which is trying to understand itself - but then it may be dismissed as ignorant casual random thought - which I am ok with!!

In a related note I do believe mathematical computing model (if one exists or can be formulated) of human brain (and of an insect for that matter) is much more powerful than Turing machine (todays computer).

Are we talking about God then ?

Ok, I may be digressing here (we are on the topic of abstraction nevertheless!), let me end this here…

(You can click on above images to see them in larger size)

During this week end I spent some time doing cosmetic changes to my web site Nature Lyrics. Tried to retain my old design principle of keeping everything simple. Not over use technology for the sake of using it. I have also separated macro gallery and landscape gallery. Added couple of more galleries dedicated to Ramanagar and TG Halli respectively which I frequent almost during every weekend.

The second image below is made the same way, only difference is I have used only two light sources - warm flash light and built-in camera flash.

The below image is made similarly but this time I did not use built-in camera flash so the bottom portion of the flower is little bit darker.

This last image below is made using only camera flash.

See the difference in visual impact!! especially between first three. In the first image cooler white balance on the flower subtly emphasizes the butterfly which is missing in the second one. The last image is very uninteresting for my taste buds.

It is amazing how minute difference in lighting can have large visual impact on the images we make.

In an unrelated note nature photography is lots of hard work. Making a satisfying image may take hours if we are lucky !!

You may click on above images to see them better in larger size.

The train running 2 hours behind schedule was probably cruising at 120km/hr. Sitting beside a window I was trying to visualize some images of frogs to be made at Katthalekana. When Dr Gururaja of Indian Institute Science, Bangalore who is an amphibian scientist informed me of his week long research trip to Katthalekana, a dense jungle in the Western Ghats I readily agreed to join him for couple of days. In Kannada language Katthale means darkness, night and Kana means forest. As the name suggests this place is a scary dense jungle - The image above shows Katthalekana forest range, more about that in a minute.

Reached Sagar around 11:30PM and next day early morning headed towards Jog where Dr Gururaja and his team (Sheshadri KS, Amit and Srikanth) were camping. Reached Jog around 9am and waited for an hour for Dr Gururaja and his team to arrive from their field work. Though I had exchanged a few notes earlier I had not met Dr Gururaja till then. Around 10:30am Dr Gururaja along with his team returned after surveying a 30km stretch of road for frog kills !! which was interesting to me. For next one hour I had an enlightening discussion with passionate and energetic Dr Guraraja about their previous day work at Katthalekana. He showed me some amazing videos of behaviours of some endemic frogs of this region. For Dr Gururaja day starts at night !! The team took rest till around 4pm (they worked till 2am previous day at jungles!) and got ready for heading towards Katthalekana. I joined them too. We reached Katthalekana around 5:30pm. Dr Gururaja gave me a little bit of coconut oil and snuff powder. I was supposed a make a paste and apply it to legs which acts as leach deterrent. Then Dr Gururaja took us inside the Katthalekana jungles. Though I was born and brought-up near Western Ghats jungles Katthalekana appeared unique even for me. 10 meters off the road along a little foot path leading us inside the jungle was barely visible at 5:30pm. The rain was pouring, plenty of leaches waiting to climb up legs along the path, our heads and necks were only a few inches away from Bamboo pit vipers that may be resting on the foliage along the paths. We were told Katthalekana is the place where all King Cobras caught in the nearby villages are released into Jungles. Dr Gururaj told me “if we think of all those things will can’t do our field work !” I have agreed with him since I knew I will there only for one more day For next half an hour Dr Gururaja led us inside the jungle in a pouring rain. We crossed the same winding stream down hill 3 times. In just a matter of 20 minutes there were flash floods in the stream. I fell down once while crossing the stream - nothing happened fortunately and I was not carrying my camera. Amit, who is part of Dr Gururaja’s team fell down and his footwear and umbrella got washed away in the floods. After about 30min of walk into jungles we stopped at a place in the jungle where Dr Gururaja showed us a tree (Semicarpus kathlekanensis or Myristica…) which stands as a proof to say millions of years back African and Indian plates where together. I understand scientists came to this conclusion since the same tree is found today in Africa too.

We spent next couple of hours at another small stream where Dr Gururaja and his team were studying a group of endemic frogs. It was around 8pm, amidst myriad of calls of different creatures of the jungle Dr Gururaja helped us isolate a few calls and associate names of a few frogs with those. Following those frog calls he would go inside some bushes and show us those amazing frogs!! His ability to find them in jungles is amazing ! I spent an hour trying to make a few images of those beautiful frogs. In pouring rain, amidst blood sucking leaches all around and with all kind of poisonous snakes and fear of stepping on them making images of frogs was not easy to say the least. I used a 3W Maglite to make most of my images and some with flash too (with limited success though). Dr Gururaja, Sheshadri and Amit helped me while making images of these frogs. At around 9pm we decided to head back to the camp for dinner. We started back again around 9:30pm and returned back to Katthalekana jungles. This time I decided not to make images since I felt I may be disturbing their field work and I was also tired. I simply decided to see what they do. They were meticulously recording frogs’ courtship behaviours etc. At around 12am Dr Gururaja and his team decided to return back to the camp. We came back and took rest. Next day morning at 6am Dr Gururaja and his team went again for another round of road kill survey. I decided to take some more rest at camp. Got up around 7:30am and went around the camp with my macro lens to make a few images.

Next day around 2:30pm the plan was to visit Muppane and then goto Katthalekan again. I decided to do some more macro work and skip Muppane. Around 3:30am I checked out from the camp and headed towards Katthalekana. Plan was to join Dr Gururaja’s team at a place named Mavinagundi about 10km before Katthalekana. I stopped and waited near Mavinagundi for Dr Gururaja and his team to arrive. While waiting for Dr Gururaja a person came near by my car and asked “are you Ganesh” ? I said “yes I am” Then he introduced himself as Mr Ashok T Hegde ! We both are members of a nature photo forum (INW) and had exchanged a few notes earlier !! The Internet has made this world very small. Then Ashok joined us too to Katthalekana !! Previous day Dr Gururaja had promised me to show a newly discovered species of frog named Neelanethrus having beautiful blue eyes (above images - you may click on them to see them larger). We entered jungles again in pouring rain around 7pm. After listening to myriads of calls in the jungle at last the Dr Gururaj and his team found a frog in some thick bushes. “You drank enough, I will take you out now” I heard Dr Gururaja saying. He was removing leaches from his legs!! Blood was oozing out from multiple places from his legs!! I did not know what to say. Amit in Dr Gururaja’s team also found another species of frog. I made some images of these two beautiful frogs. Around 9pm we decided to return. Dr Gururaja and his team went towards Kumta, I returned back with Ashok. Stopped at Mavinagundi, had a nice dinner at Ashok’s house and returned back to Sagar around 11pm.

Fantastic experience to say the least !! Thanks a million to Dr Gururaja and his team - Sheshadri, Amit and Srikanth. Hats off to them - I have not seen another team as daring, as energetic and as passionate.

This trip will stay in my memory for years to come for sure!!

Thanks a lot to Vijay Mohan Raj for his support during the trip. Without his help I would not have made this trip.

Thanks to Ashok T Hegde for his help and a nice dinner! Anyone going to Katthalekana or Jog may get in touch with Ashok for valuable information about this amazing place.

Thanks to forest department person who joined us to Katthalekana - too bad, I forgot his name

For more information about Dr Gururaja and his research work visit this link.

You may click on images of frogs above to see them in larger size. You can find a few more images I made at Katthalekana here. I may add some more images in a few days. If anyone is interested in knowing more about my technique of using torch lights for macro photography please visit this link.

Thats all for now about Katthalekana trip!!