Tigers in the spotlight

Chris Brunskill's pictorial book is the result of an obsession with photographing big cats

He's 27 years old and loves big cats. Meet Chris Brunskill who was drawn to Ranthambhore in India while studying photography in London. Having read several books on Ranthambhore, he collected enough money for a trip to India by "doing odd jobs here and there" and decided to visit the national park, "like any other tourist".

But wasn't this 'big Indian visit' executed with the specific purpose of working on his book Tiger Forest that was recently launched in New Delhi's Imperial hotel?

"No," says Brunskill adding, "the only reason I wanted to visit Ranthambhore was because I wanted to click one decent photograph of a tiger, up close and personal."

His first visit to this national park was scheduled for three days but before he knew it Brunskill realised he'd already used up 100-odd film rolls and a three-day trip had extended to six weeks.

But why not visit other Indian sanctuaries like Bandhavgarh? Ranthambhore, it seems, captivated Brunskill and even though he made plans to visit other sanctuaries, he somehow kept coming back here. "Every time I went back home I craved to return to this particular national park."

Perhaps it was destiny that kept bringing him back to Ranthambhore "" Brunskill has been coming back to India for the past five years "" for it was here that he met Timothy Scollary, who encouraged him to work on a book.

Scollary, a businessman who had visited Ranthambhore as a tourist, was "impressed with Brunskill's dedication to his work".

He advised him to work consciously towards a pictorial book on tigers, especially after he realised that Brunskill had created a library of nearly 20,000 photographs of Ranthambhore national park.

When he returned to England, Brunskill called him up and presented a proposal and within 15 weeks the book was ready with 2,000 prints released in England in October this year. Following this, 5,000 prints of the book were also released in Hong Kong.

The book is in the landscape format, not in the more popular portrait format "" that's because Brunskill didn't want to compromise on the layout of his photographs.

Scollary's other book that has been launched simultaneously in India "" Pushkar by Tripti Pandey, printed in Germany and priced at Rs 1,850 "" is in the portrait format and, "has been well-received by the Indian market," says Scollary.

While Scollary wants to bring out other books on Rajasthan, he would first like to gauge the response to the two books that he has published.

Brunskill, on the other hand, is planning to travel to East Africa, parts of Asia and South America to start working on another book. The subject? No surprises. "Big Cats," he says.