This story is not about photography. It is not about great images (as you can see, these aren't all that great). This is about how I started my journey two decades ago to document India's rich biodiversity.  This is, then, a personal story. 

India is a biodiversity hotspot. It has diverse geographical areas, climatic zones and a range of habitats. That is why the country is home to a diverse range of life forms.  When I started photographing wildlife, I was amazed by this colossal wealth of diversity in India. We have so many life forms, many of which were poorly documented, or not documented at all. When I started out, many parts of the country were as yet unexplored. I decided to work on this aspect of biodiversity – the little-known, the under-explored. I started to study lesser-known species. The lack of practical information made it a difficult task. I would make repeated trips and gather my findings from the field. My so-called success rate was very low, but the joy of learning about new species or exploring new areas was incomparable. 

Some species were poorly documented because they were rare, or their habitat was inaccessible. Others, we knew little about simply because they were outside the popular realm, they were less glamourous. In the last decade, awareness has increased and many of these species are better studied now. We're able to see some really good photographs of them, which we wouldn't have had years ago. 

Here, I am sharing some images of lesser-documented species from my first few trips (to clarify, this is not the first documentation available, but a compilation of my first sightings for these species). Click through the  photo story (above) to see the species I found interesting and challenging to photograph at the start of my career. Like I said, these images aren't the best, but the experience and learning behind every frame makes them special to me. 

Click through (above) to view the photo story.