Manchit is a close friend of mine. A nice and calm person. He has an inclination towards photography… ummm… let me rephrase that… He loves nature photography. Among his many subjects of interest, I’d rate Butterflies as a prime. And for good reason.
Butterflies are indicators of a healthy environment. Plus, they are so delicate and beautiful. Knowing the nature lover that Manchit is, I was not surprised by his choice. You should see him running around in bushes, and then, he’ll suddenly freeze, position his camera, and… CLICK. And trust me; most of his shots turn out beautiful…
I guess that’s enough for an intro, I should get to the point now.
What I learned from Manchit and his Butterflies…
Patience: When you are going to click a butterfly, you can’t just stomp in next to it and expect it to stay put. You have to wait for it to get accustomed to your presence. Once it has settled down with you around, you can get even as close as 3 inches (5-8 cm) to it with your camera, and it will stay. You have to learn to respect the beauty and delicateness of the butterflies and to give it that much worth, only then do you get a god click.
Persistence: You cannot expect to get a good capture in one shot. You will always need to take many shots to achieve perfection. And if your subject moves to a different location, you cannot just forget about it, you have to keep going for it if you want a good shot. Till you have hope, everything is there, once hope is lost, everything else is…
Believe in yourself: There will always be people laughing at you when you go around chasing your dream. You cannot let it dishearten you. You will never achieve anything if you stop following your dreams when someone sneers or pokes fun at you. Always remember, even if you feel like the whole world is laughing at you, there will be at least one person who is smiling, not because he thinks you are crazy, but because he thinks you are doing a great job. The people who laugh will shut up by themselves, when they see you emerging with Flying Colours.
You always get a second chance: Whenever an opportunity comes knocking on our doors, and we try to grab hold of it, but we miss it, just coz of sheer bad luck… we lose hope. It’s the same here… you can’t always capture a butterfly, sometimes, they never settle around you; they just fly away. If you are lucky, it may come back to give you a second chance, but you cannot give up if it does not. You have to try again. There will be another opportunity; a different one. It may not be so soon, it may not be as beautiful, it may not be as big… but it will come… ALWAYS! And if you are lucky, you just may get a Beautiful, Big one with vibrant colours; pretty soon too…
For the ending… Just some of his clicks. Enjoy…
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- Peacock Pansy. This was one of his first perfect shots which encouraged him to do more…
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- Common Baron
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- Common Emigrant
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- Common Jezebel
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- Common Rose
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- Gray Count
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- Pea Blue
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- This is a Nigger. This one won him the Sony Ericsson World view 2nd place (India Region) and a slot on the cover page of the local newspaper…
After his appearance on the newspaper, people have started acknowledging his talent and respecting him for it. Just a way to say that: “He held on… He came through!” (With flying colours… Literally!!!) 
. Hope I feel like writing when I get some of my great thoughts.
