An eye for the unique
View(s):While other wildlife photographers may wistfully wait for a photo spree in Africa, Asela Karunaratne has made maximum use of our own Eden: a koha amidst lush foliage about to toss a berry as red as its eye into its mouth; a kingfisher about to swallow its slithering sliver of fish-prey….
Asela receiving his award at the Oasis International Photo contest and above, his winning shot
The key stone of wildlife photography is to capture the exact, crucial moment, but I still wondered if Asela made things go in super slow motion to freeze some of his stunning pictures. Each image has an unpretentious beauty: a beauty which is the result of fascination and calculation.
Asela is fascinated by what he calls the “unique behaviour” of each animal. He strives to capture these patterns of behaviour. Painstaking attention and sustained knowledge of the animals’ behaviour help him to freeze the perfect moment.
Asela’s other secret is that he plans each shot. He knows exactly what he wants when he follows the spoor of the leopard or the elephant. In fact he calls the whole process ‘bringing to life images which were fragments of my imagination”. It is in this way that he has caught some majestic portraits of our elusive big feline: leopards on trees; leopards killing; leopards boxing.
Elephants however are his favourite. “They are active, and always on the move.”
His favourite terrain used to be Yala. But nowadays, with the massive influx of tourists, he shies away from the Ruhuna Park. Wilpattu, he says, is better if you want a good shot without having to include busloads of people also in it.
Asela grew up in Kurunegala and that, he says, is where he got his eye for natural beauty. Playful days in rural Aandagala and in the lake round in Kurunegala coloured his childhood. Those colours in turn nourished the adult artist. The joy of those days never deserted him and still guided him when, after a career at Unilever, he took up photography full time in 2004.
Starting late seemed not to have troubled Asela. He has reaped a bountiful harvest of awards within the one decade he has been operating. This year one of his photos was the winner of the Mammals category in the Oasis International Photo Contest. He had to compete with photographers from 57 countries and was the first Sri Lankan to win in the competition.
He was the first Sri Lankan wildlife photographer to win the FIAP and PSA Gold Medals at the Greek Photographic Circuit in 2015.
For beginners, his advice is, “you must love it, and study what others do.” However he slips in a final word of wisdom which carries more potency:
“You must try to do something utterly different from what others do; something extraordinary….”