B2 and Other Great Tiger Pics from India

[Roflcopters]

first photos of bengal tigers from India 

Over the years we've been wowed by stunning photographs of wild tigers, especially from India. But have you ever wondered who took the first photograph of a tiger in the wild? When? Where?

Well, here it is. Shot in 1925. The photographer: An Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer.

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Who was this IFS officer you ask? Well, he is a name familiar to most conservationists - Frederick Walter Champion, better known as F.W. Champion.

A 1921 batch officer, F.W. Champion served the forests of United Provinces (now UP & Uttarakhand) right until 1947. Unlike most 

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officers of his era, Champion loathed shooting for sport, preferring photographing wildlife instead. He in fact had been trying to get a tiger image even before getting into IFS (he was in the British Indian Army before IFS). It took him 8 long years to finally get these images!

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These 3 tiger images, taken in the Kumaon forests, were first published on the Front Page of the prestigious 'The Illustrated London News' on Oct 3, 1925. The accompanying headline read:

"A Triumph of Big Game Photography: The First Photographs of Tigers in the Natural Haunts"

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For photographer friends, Champion even gave what we today call the EXIF details:

"...although the photograph of the tiger pulling his kill was taken at 1-50 sec. on a special rapid plate; suitable exposures are from 1-150 to 1-200 sec., with f6.8 on an ultra-rapid plate..."

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Champion christened the photography technique that got him the first images of tigers in the wild as "trip-wire photography", where a tiger (or any other animal) tripped on a wire carefully concealed below his usual walking path resulting in him taking his own image, usually by the night as the flashes connected to the wire went off simultaneously. One of the published captions in The Illustrated London News read:

"These photographs", he [Champion] writes, in a letter that accompanied them, "are quite unique, no satisfactory photographs ever having been taken before, to my knowledge, of tigers in their native haunts." What does the tiger himself think about it? "The flash is so sudden," says Mr. Champion, "that he probably takes it for a flash of lightning."

Champion's technique would be further refined from the late 80s onwards to eventually evolve into what today is better known as "camera-trap photography", the standard method for tiger census & monitoring across India. This is why Champion is often regarded as the "father of camera-trap photography". He'd also go on to write two absolutely fantastic books titled "With a Camera in Tigerland" (1927) and "Jungle in Sunlight and Shadow" (1933), with dozens of stunning portraits of Indian wildlife taken in their natural habitat. These inspired many hunters, including Jim Corbett, to give up their guns for cameras. 

*This image is copyright of its original author

*This image is copyright of its original author

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