Each Monday, we’ll highlight one indie photographer whose body of work deserves special recognition. Please enjoy their photography here, and make it a point to enjoy the rest of their work on their website.
Samyak Kaninde is a talented amateur photographer who resides in Chennai/Pune, India. Choosing nature as his main subject, Samyak focuses on photographing birds, landscapes and macros. Outdoor photography is challenging as you have to understand fully on how to utilise available natural light to get that perfect exposure, clearly Samyak has mastered this.
Kit:
Samyak uses multiple cameras and lenses for different style of photography – the 2009 Camera Grand Prix ‘Camera of the Year’ Canon 5D Mark II for landscape, macro & travel photography and the Canon7D for birds & wildlife shootings. As for his lenses, he put his trusts in Sigma’s 150mm F/2.8 for all of his macro works since it gives him the most comfortable distance from his subjects, Canon’s 300mm F/4 coupled with 1.4 TC for his birds and wildlife photography and of course an all-purpose Canon 24-105mm for everything else.
Workflow:
Being an outdoor photographer, Samyak prefers to utilise natural lighting completely. While on location, he will first be on the look out for subjects, observe their behaviour and formulate ideas as to how he wants to photograph them. Paying special attention to wildlife’s behaviour is an integral part of shooting wildlife in order to get the best photo out of them in natural light.
Once Samyak is satisfied with his captures, he will first convert them via Canon’s very own Digital Photo Profesional from RAW to TIFF format before exporting them on to Adobe Photoshop for any necessary enhancements and adjustments to images to ready them for printing or new media.
Tips, Tricks and Techniques:
As a derivative of photographing wildlife, Samyak understands and advocates the importance of needs to study and observe the species that he is about to shoot. Patience is the key and the need to know the exact habitat locations for the particular species that he’s going to shoot would help assist in capturing great images.
Lessons Learned:
In the photographic process, we are bound to encounter a number of new techniques whether accidentally or by observing and improvising from our initial technique. Samyak stumbled upon a radial zoom technique, where you zoom in/out while the camera is exposing the subject would give some nice effects surrounding the subject. He loved the technique so much now to the extend that he will use it whenever possible, but notes that the technique works best when there is a streak of uneven light scattered around the subject to give it a most unique feel.
Inspiration:
Samyak admires the work of many photographers but two that influence/inspires him most are:
Bence Mate – “Bence is a very inspiring photographer for the kind of innovative hide photography he is doing to get the unimaginable photographs from a wide angle lenses with completely different perspectives.”
Arthur Morris – “Arthur is a very respected old timer particularly in shooting birds. He is a great tutor and offers everyone so much of guidance related to bird photography. His photography is a great inspiration throughout my photography.”
What’s Next:
Samyak would like to shoot the rainforests, particularly those situated in India’s North Eastern region and Borneo. The kind of biodiversity and amazing wonders of hidden nature present in these forests which Samyak would love to explore and bring them to common man’s attention through his photography. Given the chance, Samyak would like to follow the footsteps of one of his idol, Bence Mate’s way of presenting amazing perspectives by capturing intimate moments of birds through photography.
Links:
Samyak Kaninde can be found online via Facebook, his personal website SamyakKaninde.com and of course his Flickr account.
