National Geographic hosted a special Nat Geo Live event tonight called Scientific Exposure, the first of two live streamed evenings put on through partnerships with theaters across the country that our frequent stops for touring Nat Geo Live events. With a focus on photographing science, Anand Varma and Prasenjeet Yadav joined Senior Director Andrew Pudvah for an exciting hour-long conversation that included opportunities for questions and answers.
Photo Source: National Geographic
Both guests have been featured on the Overheard at National Geographic podcast, but this event offered a chance to see a lot of their work, including videos, and a chance to learn more about what they’ve been working on most recently. The structure of the event allowed each photographer to discuss a recent project for National Geographic, each covering the same project featured on the podcast, before sharing the virtual stage to discuss a few collaborations.
Anand Varma talked about his goal of capturing scientific findings and making them look cool to readers of National Geographic magazine. For a story on mind controlling parasites, Anand was inspired by a nighttime wedding photography shoot to photograph parasitic larvae exiting a crab they had turned into a breeding machine. The crazy thing about these parasites is that if they infect a male crab, they make it change into a female so they can use it to breed new parasites. From that point on, the crab lives a normal life, but can only produce parasites, not baby crabs.
Similar phenomena happen in ladybugs and crickets, the latter being driven to drown itself when it’s time for a parasite worm to emerge. To capture a photo of a worm exiting a cricket, Anand kept a tank of infected crickets in his house. He used fiber optic lighting and special lenses to photograph the event, using a saline solution on a glass tray and a cold cricket that spent time in a refrigerator to slow the scene down.
Separate from the mind-controlling parasite assignment was a project to document honeybees. With lots of media coverage of the issues they face, Anand chose to focus more on the scientific research being done to help them rather than on the bees themselves. Photos shown included testing pesticides on bees, testing their memory with controlled stimuli, and breeding them to be more resistant to environmental threats with an image of a queen bee being artificially inseminated. During the project, Anand became a beekeeper himself in his garage where he captured the 21 day process of a larva becoming a flying honeybee converted into 60-seconds of footage. In the video, you could see Varroa Mites crawling over the growing bees, which make the younglings sick and more susceptible to disease, responsible for wiping out entire hives.
Lastly, Anand showcased some photos and videos he captured of hummingbirds. Using fog machines, scientists are able to visualize the airflow around a hummingbird’s wings, which he captured in a stunning photograph. Using artificial flowers full of nectar, he was also able to photograph the forked tongue of a hummingbird. Slow motion footage allowed him to capture the layers of complexity of a hummingbird drying itself off after a rain shower.
Prasenjeet Yadav’s solo presentation was about his two-and-a-half years in the Himalayas photographing snow leopards. He shares how his upbringing on a farm in the middle of a jungle in India prepared him for the expedition, already being familiar with the behavior and scent of big cats. He shared that he turned from a career as a molecular biologist to a photographer to better communicate with the people who live in close proximity to wild areas.
To tackle the snow leopard assignment, Prasanjeet moved into the mountains and became part of a local village where he learned how to survive and collaborated with the Snow Leopard Trust. He learned about the paths snow leopards typically traveled and set up camera traps throughout the area, each one taking between 6 and 8 hours to set up. Through his time there, he learned a lot about the habits of snow leopards and developed a fondness for an older cat with a chipped ear.
Sadly, the chipped ear snow leopard died during a hunt and the next day, Prasanjeet had to leave the village due to the pandemic. However, his camera traps remained and they later caught footage of a mother with two cubs, believed to be descended from the chipped ear cat.
Anand and Prasenjeet first collaborated in 2014 when Anand was visiting India on an assignment. They became fast friends and Prasenjeet was invited to join Anand on an assignment in Mexico. Inside of ancient Mayan temples, the largest bats in the new world live, hunting rodents, birds and other bats. Anand had a vision of getting an image of a bat flying past the temple with an illuminated shadow on its walls, a task that was attempted every night for over two weeks. They even extended their trip by a night hoping to get the perfect shot, but in the end, the National Geographic editors chose Anand’s first trial photo where some of his gear is visible in the shot.
Then it was Prasenjeet’s turn to recruit Anand’s help while covering a story on an Eastern Himalaya mountain tribe, the Cherappunji, who live on mountaintops and cross deep river-filled valleys to reach neighboring communities. To make this task easier, they started using the roots of trees to create natural bridges, a task that takes decades. With Anand’s help, Prasenjeet was able to get beautiful nighttime shots of these wondrous bridges, giving each one its own unique identity. Some of the bridges are over 400 years old and many have been reclaimed by the jungle when the locals stopped using them.
Like previous virtual events, each guest brought a show-and-tell item. Prasenjeet showed elements of his camera traps while Anand held up a bowl with a pregnant moon jellyfish inside. He has a tank full of them in his garage for the assignment he’s currently working on and the one he showed off is pregnant. His work will document the start of the lives of new moon jellies.
Click here to visit the official website of Nat Geo Live to learn more about upcoming events. If you’d like to see this same event live, an encore presentation is scheduled for Wednesday, February 10th, at 10 pm ET/7 pm PT.