Photographing the photographer

By John Roberts 12 June 2008 01:28:00

Had you been watching the webcam yesterday you'd have seen some odd behaviour and I'm not talking about the meeting between the mahouts and our insurance broker about their new package, when and where they're allowed to break themselves and where to tell the ambulance driver to go etc.

    More exciting even than that, you'd have noticed some odd movement patterns and, that rarest of sights, me riding an ele.

    It was all part of the Directive genius of Palani Mohan who, despite swearing never to photograph an ele again after his book Vanishing Giants, found himself in camp on a mission from the Swiss company that look after Lamyai and Meena, Finass Reisen, through the Four Seasons Tented Camp adoption scheme to take the portraits of their two eles and the wizened, weathered faces of Lung Pat and Lung Lun.

    Being a lover of light Palani couldn't help himself playing with the colours and patterns in the elephant camp...