Shikhar Mohan is known as the bird paparazzo of Vaishali.
A familiar face in Sector 4's Garden Apartments, where he lives, Mohan is a third-year law student at Amity University Noida with a secret passion. He has a special place in his heart for bird photography.
However, it was Vaishali, his neighbourhood, that was the focus of his camera first when his father gave him his first professional camera — a P510 Nikon point-and-shoot — on his 17th birthday.
“Vaishali is always abuzz with activity,” Mohan says. “Since it’s so accessible from Delhi, it’s chock-a-block with people from across the NCR. It’s such a melting pot of cultures that I had a wide range of subjects to kick-start my photography with. I could experiment with shots, angles and technique. Soon I started clicking everything from my parents, local markets, the tall residential buildings and street scenes to stars, plants and birds. That’s when I realised how much I enjoy this.”
Of course, birds are his first love. “When children my age were chanting ‘A-for-Apple, B-for-Ball’, I was replying with ‘A-for-Albatross, B-for-Bald eagle’,” adds the 20-year-old Ghaziabad resident. “I never had to push myself to learn about birds and animals. Love for nature is in my blood.”
A regular student on weekdays, Mohan takes on the role of a tour-guide-cum-photography-trainer on weekends. As a member of SeekSherpa, a mobile-based marketplace that connects locals and explorers to facilitate unique travel experiences, Mohan now guides photography enthusiasts every week through the diverse zoological parks and bird sanctuaries in and around Delhi.
Many of these budding birders and photographers come from Noida. He also arranges special tours for his friends and neighbours in Vaishali. “They feel safer venturing into deserted wetlands and bird sanctuaries with a friendly neighbourhood face,” Mohan says.
On these outings, he teaches them about birds and how to capture them in perfect frames. “Not many who join me for these walks are into art and photography, but often they get so engrossed in the walk and the technique that they start loving it by the end of the tour,” says the young guide.
But things were not always so easy for Mohan. “Everyone in the family knew I was good with the camera, and that I knew a lot about birds and local habitats. But for many days I remained indecisive about how to channelise my talent. I needed a platform to prove myself. That is when Aman, a friend, introduced me to SeekSherpa. Since then, there has been no looking back,” he says.
“Now I can pursue my passion for nature photography and local interaction — and also get paid for it,” he adds, laughing.
“Photography is expensive, and I need to save to buy equipment. I put almost all the money I get from SeekSherpa into my Glass Fund, reserved for my next lens. And since I also fund my personal travels from this, I am forced to keep the expenses low. This makes my travels more interesting and more rooted to the soil,” the photographer says.
"I feel cloistered if I don't get out," Mohan says. "These tours are not just a means to connect with nature but also to help me breathe freely amid my hectic schedule."
When asked to sum up his journey from amateur photographer to bird paparazzo, he cites a quote by Robert Frost:
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
