2022
Walking through a rich ecosystem with a 360 on!
I’m a passionate photographer from my teenage, I have been working on wildlife photography and macro photography so far. Along with my local guide journey, I realized the fact that there is a need to create awareness among people about the extinction of wildlife and several other significant ecosystems. Sinharaja forest in Sri Lanka is a famous rain forest which is visited mostly by nature lovers both locals and foreigners. When I’m about to visit Sinharaja once, I went through the reviews and photos about that place. Also, I understood, the street view of Sinharaja is not available on Google maps, except certain business entities located nearby.
So I thought to cover this up with my 360 camera. At the end of my journey, I had so many good quality photos to be added to Google maps.
As I’m a passionate macro photographer, I had a large collection of photos of the wildlife of Sinharaja forest at the end of the journey. I uploaded the best of all with much pleasure and I’m sure this collection will boost the curiosity of many other nature lovers to visit this place.
There is also another fact that many other people, are either reluctant to visit this wild ecosystem or they may not be able to afford the geographical and other constraints. For those who cannot visit this ecosystem, these photos as well as the 360 coverage will give a virtual experience of visiting the place.
I started my journey from the Kalawana entrance and covered up the whole path with proper spacing and lighting. Of course, this was not an easy task. I walked with a guide who was well familiar to the ecosystem and the paths. Also, I had a concern not to show him in the street view. We both fixed a whistle sign which does not disturb the nature of the jungle and he walked before me keeping a little gap where he might not get captured by my camera. When I’m done, I’ll make a whistle noise and then we both starts walking. Even, in the middle of this cranky journey, he didn’t fail to explain every single bit of the ecosystem. Walking through the silence of the jungle with intermittent disturbances of the birds and other creatures was an exciting experience. Also, it was a bit scary due to little snakes peeping out of the bushes and the leeches hanging on the grasses near waterways. Also, certain paths were very frightening, I had to cross few waterways walking along narrow bridges, and some of them were just fallen trees.
(@AnuradhaP check this video)
However, I ended up with more than five hundred 360s. Also, I have captured almost all the wild creatures I found on my way through my DSLR and have uploaded a set of better quality pictures to Google maps to give the map users a better experience. The basement of all these ideas is @AlexV Google Earth Voyager thread. Whenever I see a post getting featured under Google Earth Voyager thread, I was wondering of my one and thinking of what could be the better way to express my passion in an advantageous way. At last, I came up with this idea and completed the task successfully.
Yet, it was a mind-blowing experience coming across reptiles peeping from the bushes, butterflies, moths, and dragonflies patching on my DSLR lenses, over and above my face, fishes splashing through the waterways, those hairy caterpillars hanging on their strings, those jar like Nepenthes swallowing insects, hearing the chirps and tweets of the very own birds of Sri Lanka and the croaks of those amphibians and at last the most satisfying hug to that few hundred years old tree (@TraciC Hope you will be adrenalized watching this adventurous journey).
More Photos Check this album
Even though I have quoted them in single phrases, they are precious moments worth a lifetime. You will know the value of it only if you are a nature lover!
ha ha ha very good morning @TraciC. I thought so. early morning is the most suitable time to visit rain forests. you can enjoy the tweets and chirps of the birds and also escape from the nocturnal venomous friends roaming in the nights. I spent about eight hours in the rain forest starting from 7:00 am.
This Black drongo is the king of all noise makers of Sinharaja rain forest during the morning time.
