Lioness

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Lioness Lioness Lioness Lioness Lioness

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Camera:PRAKTICA LTL
Film:Agfa 200 ASA
Tele:IMAGE 200mm
1/250sec,f8
GIR March 1975
Scanned from Negative Print
My first experiment with SLR

[Atul Sinai]

Loved the shot, do you have a colored image?

TFS

Regards,
Atul

[Sabyasachi Patra]

Atul,
This was the black and white era. Developing the negative and printing were kind of fine art with each chemical having different characteristics.

Pretty interesting to see an image from that time. Did you click this from a hide? Did you carry a goat or something to attract the lions? I read that it was a common practice at that time. I would love to hear some more details about this.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi

[Abhishek Jamalabad]

Great to see a B&W film photograph from '75. Would love to know more about the experience. What was Gir like that time, as compared to now?
Thanks for sharing.

[Mrudul Godbole]

Wow its really nice to see a photograph developed from a film. I always wonder how it would have been to do wildlife photography when not so many people were doing it and the jungles were a deserted place. It would be really nice to know your experiences. Look forward to more. Thanks for sharing.

[Saktipada Panigrahi]

Shri Sabyasachi,
We stayed in FRH located at about one Km away from Sasan Gir Railway station.
A Jeep and two present day Matador type vans( with roof covered)were used to take visitors for Safari.Number of tourists staying in FRH were very limited.On Holidays and Sundays good number of tourists used to come from Junagarh or Veraval( near Somnath Temple) and after visiting Gir from 3 P.M to 6.30 PM used to go back to their destinations.
Every Morning 4/5 persons of Forest dept.used to move out in different directions and would try to locate if there was a kill made during last night by Lions or where a pride of Lions was resting.They will inform the officials and accordingly the Route chart for the Van carrying tourists will be ordered/prepared.The van used to leave at 3 P.M sharp.
With every van there was one armed Shikari.
During my first two days' visits no GOAT was taken by the guard may be,because on first day only a very few tourists were there and on second day only we two were there.We saw 3 lion cubs on first day almost in darkness and photographed one.Second day we two took a Jeep(with a Shikari)and watched two lions(in dense scrub jungle)on our own.
On third day, a large group of tourists arrived from Junagarh. We were also
told that a Majestic LION COUPLE has been spotted by the morning search team.
We reached the location and got down from the van along with the armed guard.We found that another Shikari had a GOAT whose bleating was to attract lion and the Lioness,for not to be killed by them ,as soon as they appeared, it was to be taken farther away,to entice them further out.
The LIONESS was eyeing on the BLEATING GOAT ond the photograph was taken almost lying down in the open,with the armed guard standing just in front of me.Its Mate was a large maned Lion,whose Facial photograph I could take. After that it charged.
Atul bhai ,it is a B/W film photo.

[Roopak Gangadharan]

Wow...Loved the little write up sir. getting charged by a lion at close range mustve been a real shaky experience and posting this now mustve got you all nostalgic...people like me can only imagine how pristine and undisturbed some of our jungles were in those days and only wish to have been there...

Thanks for sharing
Roopak

[Bhargava Srivari]

What? You really mean the lion charged!! Was it the male or female- the one that charged?

Feels new to see an image from an era when I wasn't even born :) Which year was this in?

tfs

[Neil Mehta]

Amazing feeling to see a lion photographed in that era. Have read books of those and older times, always wished was born in the era of corbetts, arjan singhs to enjoy the Indian wilderness. Thank u for sharing this prized picture and plz share more .

[Sabyasachi Patra]

I had written about the Asiatic Lion in the IndiaWilds Newsletter Vol. 2 Issue II and thought of sharing it with new members IndiaWilds Newsletter Vol.2 Issue II | Diary - Tales from India's Wilds (http://www.indiawilds.com/diary/indiawilds-newsletter-vol-2-issue-ii/)

The pugees of Gir used to be great trackers. In the early 1900s the pugees used to play a naughty game. One of them used to creep silently and place a small cloth on a sleeping lion and another pugee used to go and pick it up. This game lasted for several years till the inevitable happened when one of the pugees got killed.

Cheers,
Sabyasachi