She didn't think her photo of fireflies stood a chance. But Aishwarya Sridhar, just 23 years old, beat the best in the world to bag the prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year award in the Behaviour: Invertebrates category. She told Brut how it felt to be the first adult Indian woman to achieve the feat.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00So, the picture basically has the fireflies in all their glory and it also has star trails
00:08in the sky.
00:09So, it's a beautiful amalgamation of the stars on earth and the stars shining in the sky.
00:29This particular tree had so many fireflies, like literally the tree was lit with some
00:37Diwali lightings, it felt that way, you know, from top to bottom and I looked up and I saw
00:43this whole blanket of stars shining down on me and the scene in front of me also looked
00:49as if, you know, stars had descended on earth.
00:52So, I tried to capture both of them, the stars in the sky and the stars on earth, which is
00:58the fireflies in one frame and that's how this image was born.
01:02It's actually 27 different images shot over a 24 second exposure, which have been stitched
01:08together to make this one image.
01:24The other picture was shot at Bhandardara, which is about three or four hours drive from
01:29Mumbai city.
01:30I coincided my entire trip with the moon's timetable, so that when I reached there, the
01:36moon would have already set or it would have been waning.
01:39Because if the moon had been there, then ambient light creates a lot of problem and I would
01:44not have been able to capture the fireflies light so well.
01:48Although the place is frequented by leopards sometimes, I thankfully didn't meet the big cat.
02:04I feel the safest in the jungle, actually, you know, that's honestly, I really feel extremely
02:09safe when I'm on field because you only have to be scared of animals and you can be cautious
02:17around them and ensure that you are safe, but it's around people that you feel the most
02:22unsafe.
02:23But there can be some sort of tricky situations when you're outside, because I was shooting
02:29this couple of girls that were sitting on a beach and I was like completely lost in
02:33this whole process.
02:34And I kept walking and at one point they were so friendly with me that they were pretty
02:39close and I was like, great, I just stood rooted to one spot and trained my camera on
02:45them and went on and on and on clicking.
02:48After some time, a dog came and they all ran away, the birds flew away, and I was like,
02:52okay, I'm probably going to follow them and see where they settle down next to capture
02:56some more frames.
02:57And I tried to move and I was rooted, I could not move at all.
03:02I looked down to find that I had completely sunk in the sand right up to my knees and
03:07no matter how much I try, I'm not able to come out.
03:10And that was pretty scary.
03:13I called out for help.
03:14My dad was around and he came and he pulled me out, thankfully, in one piece.
03:29I wanted at one point to be a CA actually, because my dad's a CA.
03:34And after my 10th standard, I was really wanting to get into that.
03:38I even took accounts and economics in my 12th.
03:43But as time passed, I realized that I'm probably the happiest on the field.
03:48And that's when I decided that I don't want a desk job and I would rather be a wildlife
03:54filmmaker and a photographer and be able to, you know, showcase our beautiful biodiversity
03:59to the people out there.