Congratulations Indiawilds

[Bibhav Behera]

Congratulating IndiaWilds for reaching 500 members in such a small time. Hope the core idea and the purpose of this forum takes it to even greater heights. I'm sure there is a lot each one of us has taken away from this forum...
Great Going Guys...

Special Congrats to Sabyasachi. You have been doing a great job...

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Thanks Bibhav!

I never had any membership numbers (read goals or targets) in mind before starting this, however I concede that 500 can be called as a first milestone in the long journey that we have undertaken.

I feel good when I see lot of people like Bibhav, Sagar, Abhishek learning the nuances of wildlife photography so fast. I wish there were a place like this when I started photographing. We should thank the internet and the digital photography for that.

I get more satisfaction from the fact that earlier it was me who was trying to shoot missives to the various ministries in support of conservation. Today a number of our members are writing protest letters and emails to the ministry on various issues. We need more such members, as in a democracy like ours lot of people writing letters does make a difference.

Lot of you have helped in shaping this. Mrudul has supported me from the beginning in more ways than one. Ranbir provided the initial ideas and thrust. Apana joined late but has had a big impact. Similarly Rajan's well meaning advice and support gave me lot of clarity. Bibhav, Chitrita, Vikram, Aditya, Kiran, Sagar, Abhishek....God...I think it is better not to name as I am sure I will miss out of names and create a mess.

We have a long way to go. We will consider ourselves successful if we can protect our fast vanishing wilderness and our wildlife. May God give us the strength and the ideas to succeed.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Dipankar Mazumdar]

It is indeed a special milestone. The kind of commitment that Sabyasachi has for this portal is awesome. Right from advice regarding gear to detailed comments from all the pros on uploaded pictures, there is always a helping hand around on this portal.
I for myself am a very recent participant here but I must confess that Indiawilds has in a very large measure filled up a void of a vocation that was very necessary in the kind of stressful workplace that I have.Thanx to Indiawilds, I pine for a day into the woodlands every weekend and see a new dimension to every aspect of nature around me.

[Rajan Kanagasabai]

Hi Friends

It is indeed a momentous occassion for all of us in general and Sabyasachi in particular, for this is a credible achievement. 500 quality members is an awesome achievement by any standards.

Having been part of the IT fraternity and a Vice President at one of the Top 4IT organiations, i can confidently state that filling up a membership base with a quantity target for any portal, is possibly not a very hard task. The difficult part is in ensuring that the quality of the members is excellent, consistent and there is no compromise on ethics and governance.

The other thing that impresses me is, In a forum like this, it takes a lot of maturity and grace on part of all the members to accept criticism as part of a learning process and absorb it in the right spirit. It takes even more higher levels of professionalism and maturity from the senior pro's to provide such advices and critic info, in a manner which is easy to digest, to the point, yet taking care, to ensure no feathers are ruffled.

Sabyasachi, Apna, and some of our best Pro's in this business today, have excelled in this part. Walking this fine line, possibly comes naturally to them. This, rounded out with a great set of forum members, makes this one of the most sought after sites - more of getting together with family members - after a long hard day's work.

My heartfel thanks to one and all, who have made this happen and look forward to many more years of such wonderful association with more such like minded folks joining the family.

Having said that, i cannot resist a revist to my earlier post on the need for all of us to collectively work towards sustaining this wonderful forum in a more practical and pragmatic way. This today, is a lot easier, for the sheer volume of our membership will give us the collective strength to explore a self sustaining financial model, than just letting Sabyasachi bear the complete burden of running and maintaining this wonderful sight. I am posting a link to my earlier post, since i will not need to explain my views all over again.

http://www.indiawilds.com/forums/showthread.php?t=429

My sincere request to all of my fellow forum members to revisit this post and come up witih suggestions to explore options of taking this forward. I do think it was a bit premature last time (we were not even a 100 people, when i did float this post and hence had very few responses) but am confident that we can come up with a workable one,with our strong numbers today.

My offer of hosting an Indiawilds get together at Chennai for an evening of dinner and drinks . . . still stands. Maybe Sabyasachi can list out the Chennai members and look at a workable date while outstation members are more than welcome to stop by

Here is wishing India Wilds all the very best for a wonderful future.

regards
Rajan

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Congratulations Sabyasachi, and everyone else on this site, for this achievement!

I agree with the others' words that this forum has been a boon to beginners like me... the comments, critiques and suggestions have been of immense help... just about 5 months ago, before I joined Indiawilds, I was a person who "just knew how to press the shutter button"!

But what sets this site apart from others of its kind is the equal emphasis it lays on wildlife conservation and the active role played by many of the members in this field...

Thanks again everyone (especially Sabyasachi, of course!!) for this great site...
Keep going!!

[AB Apana]

Congratulations are indeed in order, especially to Sabyasachi! Regrettably work pressures have kept me from participating in the forum for the last couple of weeks.

Apana

[Bibhav Behera]

There is absolutely no doubt, where the core strength and competence of Indiawilds lies and stands. It is in its honesty and dedication. It is difficult for a person to accept critiquing and human tendency would generally incline towards wishing for "Awesome shot and wooohoos and wows". But to build a concept around constructive criticism is a big endeavour in itself, let apart sustaining it. Kudos to Sabyasachi for that. There are a lot of websites floating around where people would see your images and clap away. I don't intend to demean those sites, but there I guess the learning curve isn't as steep as one would expect here.

My journey with Indiawilds started in December '08 and its been nothing short of a scintillating experience for me since then. I can proudly say, whatever little I can contribute to photography today, has primarily been due to this forum and the constant inputs from the experienced members here. Sabyasachi has been more than a mentor to me in this regard. Mrudul, Rajan, Apana, Kiran and many more have all influenced me in some way or the other. I can now understand the style and preference of different photographers and try to incorporate the learnings into my images. I'm a toddler into serious photography (9 months old ). This forum has made things a lot easier for me than it would have been otherwise. I see my older images and the ones of date and I can see the difference. Still a long long long way to go... Wish that Indiawilds is always around with its ideals intact and even better images each single time... Amen

[Sagar Patil]

Bibhav has mentioned all the things which were also there in my mind
I wish best for our forum and its all members.

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Dear All,
Thanks for your kind words. Some highly flattering words have been mentioned. Don't know how to respond to that. :-)

Rajan is right when he says that it is easier to get members but getting quality members is important. I could have created user ids for lot of people and mailed them. Didn't take that option even during the beta testing phase of the forum.

It is true that all of us have devoted a lot of time. Wildlife photography is a life long learning. The learning curve is steep if we accept critiques and learn from those. A lot of people here accept the critiques with the right spirit and it shows in the results. It is important to give the right feedback as well. I am happy that lot of people here strive to do so. When we give feedback, we visualise the situation and in that process we learn as well. So whoever wants to learn wildlife photography should comment on the images of other people. It is easier to give good shot and great shot comments. There are too many places where one can get those comments. No point in wasting valuable bandwidth and server spaces by those.

I agree with Bibhav, Abhishek, Sagar. You guys are learning very fast.

Dipankar is absolutely right that there is a void of vocation for lot of people. If we can inculcate the love for wildlife and wilderness areas, then I am sure we can consider ourselves successful. Rajan has rightly said that at the end of the day, we look forward to catching up with everybody. Well, we sneak in for sometime even during the day as well.

Though people have been learning wildlife photography, one should not forget the conservation aspect. Without wildlife, there can be no wildlife photography. So we should be sincere and take up conservation issues as best as we can.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi