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u/roshan-panjwani

Time, Etched. Chobe, Botswana [OC]
▲ 10 r/wildlifephotography

Time, Etched. Chobe, Botswana [OC]

Would love to hear from this community what emotion does this evoke on first look? And what changes, if anything, as you look at it longer?

u/roshan-panjwani — 2 days ago
▲ 13 r/photography

I spent 36 hours at sea to photograph polar bears in Greenland — here's what that actually looks like [OC]

I've made two trips to the High Arctic — Svalbard in May 2017 and Scoresby Sund, East Greenland in September 2018. Both were photography-focused expeditions aboard small vessels. Here's what photographing polar bears actually looks like.

Finding them is the hardest part

We spent days in Svalbard spotting bears so far away they were a single pixel in the frame. We started calling them "1-pixel bears." A white animal against a white landscape through a long lens, hoping it moves.

Almost halfway through the expedition, we found a large male sleeping on ice near the ship. The crew anchored for the night. Around 2:15 AM I heard a knock on my cabin door — "the bear is walking, let's go." I'd been sleeping in my base layers in anticipation. The next two hours were spent in the zodiac photographing him walking the land and swimming across the fjord in full midnight sun daylight. Back after 6 AM to hot chocolate from the chef.

In Greenland it's harder. The local Inuit community hunts polar bears, so they're wary and rarely seen. On our first zodiac outing in Scoresby Sund, we found one rolling atop an iceberg in evening light. We didn't see another trace for the rest of the trip. That image later appeared on the cover of Canadian Photography (CAPA) Magazine and was featured by BBC Earth.

On the photography

The Greenland frame was shot on a Canon 70D, a crop sensor body, with a 100–400mm lens, deliberately chosen for the 1.6x crop factor giving effective 640mm. The window to get it right was short.

The midnight sun in Svalbard means full daylight at 2 AM. What it does to the quality of light is hard to describe. Patience is the main skill. You position yourself, you wait.

On getting there

Scoresby Sund required a flight to Reykjavik, a domestic flight to Akureyri in northern Iceland, and 36 hours at sea through the Denmark Strait. For Svalbard, you typically fly from the Norwegian city of Tromsø to Longyearbyen. The operator you choose matters more than any gear decision as you're dependent on their local knowledge and judgment about where to position the zodiac.

Happy to answer questions about either expedition.

thelongexposurephoto.substack.com
u/roshan-panjwani — 2 days ago
▲ 22 r/wildlifephotography

Stillness in the Storm. Elephants in Jim Corbett National Park, India

Going ultrawide on this elephant herd, quite close to our vehicle, helped create the depth and drama in this frame

u/roshan-panjwani — 7 days ago
▲ 15 r/wildlifephotography

The Chobe Salute - Elephant, Botswana [OC]

Chobe has one of the largest elephant populations on earth, and the light in the last hour is extraordinary. An elephant silhouette at the river’s edge against a setting sun was on my list before I even booked the trip, so I planned accordingly.

u/roshan-panjwani — 9 days ago
▲ 5 r/photography

Seeking feedback on pricing limited edition fine art photography prints

I am a nature and wildlife photographer based in Toronto launching a fine art prints store. Over a decade shooting in some less explored places like the High Arctic, Okavango Delta, Mara, forests of South Asia and more. Had an image on the cover of Canadian Photography Magazine and featured by BBC Earth on IG.

Prints are limited edition — 30 per image, 15 for select images with editorial recognition. Three substrates: Hahnemühle Baryta paper, Acrylic Facemount, and ChromaLuxe Metal, produced at a certified fine art lab in Toronto.

Entry price is CAD 550 for a 20×30" fine art photo rag (unframed) and goes up to CAD 8100 for an Acrylic facemount (ready to hang). At a given size, Acrylic Facemount runs 2.5-3x of photo rag. I am also thinking about increasing prices as prints within an edition sell out (threshold and % increase to be determined).

Full pricing and a couple of examples of the work here (edition of 30) and here (edition of 15).

Two questions for this community:

  1. Does the entry price and 3x substrate premium between paper and acrylic feel justified based on the work?
  2. Does within-edition price escalation, where later prints in an edition cost more, make sense or does it add friction for buyers?

Thanks.

u/roshan-panjwani — 10 days ago
▲ 16 r/FineArtPhoto

Sketch

Pied Kingfisher photographed in Botswana. With the light being harsh, high key black and white came to mind with the skeletal branch. The large negative space was deliberate. Curious whether it reads as stillness or tension?

u/roshan-panjwani — 13 days ago
▲ 75 r/FineArtPhoto+2 crossposts

Where Light Carves. Ladakh, India

Hi, I am Roshan, a nature and wildlife photographer with over a decade of work in some of the less explored places on the planet. I am new to sharing my photography work in Reddit communities, and looking forward to engage with and learn from this fine art community

This is a black and white landscape from Ladakh, shot mid-morning. It is not the golden hour shot, but the one when the light climbs just high enough to cast shadows across every fold in the terrain. I had been looking for something beyond the wide landscape, and it was the texture of the hillside with the play of light that caught my eye here.

u/roshan-panjwani — 9 days ago
▲ 25 r/NaturePhoto+2 crossposts

King of Ice: Polar Bear, Scoresby Sund, East Greenland

Hi, I am Roshan, a nature and wildlife photographer based in Toronto. I have spent over a decade making photographs in the High Arctic, Africa, South Asia and more. Looking forward to engaging with this community. This is 'King of Ice' - a polar bear I photographed in Scoresby Sund in East Greenland, in 2018.

Would love to get thoughts.

u/roshan-panjwani — 9 days ago