He did some remarkable photography in the mid-1970s of the little-known monuments of Pudukkottai a former princely state near the
He did some remarkable photography, in the mid-1970s, of the little-known monuments of Pudukkottai, a former princely state near the town of Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu. Neither did he hold photo exhibitions nor publish "coffee-table" books. Krishnan could be scathing about the fast-spawning school of "nature writers", pointing out their scant attention to detail. In his opinion, you had to know about the taxonomy, the morphology, the behavioural patterns, before you wrote or took "pitchers", as he called them.Krishnan's camera took in the non-animal world too, although warily.
Self-adjusting light and distance mechanisms, for him, were shortcuts unworthy of forests.Even as younger and more successful cameramen whizzed from forest or "ethnic" site to exhibition venues in the western hemisphere, Krishnan's travel remained confined to where his subjects were - in the dappled forests of India. Except for field trips, he rarely left Madras, visiting Delhi a few times perhaps, and never once going abroad. For him the function of the camera was to record without bias. His lenses were never in competition with the subject; for Krishnan, nature always came before the art and science of photography. He could take months returning or, equally likely, decline the honour as patronising.
In fact, he rather appreciated the presidential gesture because national and international awards were the only kind of recognition he was likely to get: he was too proud to seek professional awards or enter contests, to lobby critics or the press.Krishnan refused to accept, much less adapt, to new technology. Modern technology outpaced his hand-assembled camera; his developing and printing techniques seemed to belong to a bygone age. Describing how he photographed a tigress from the top of an elephant at Kanha, he wrote:I was positively anxious not to do anything that might panic her, as the impossibly contrasty lighting, with the overhead sun casting patches of dense shade and brilliant highlights all over, presented quite sufficient photographic problems without the added one of the subject bolting. However, in an attempt to get her to raise her head and open her eyes fully, loud clucks with the tongue were tried, to no effect. Every time the elephant was moved, the noise of its feet on the litter-strewn ground made her open her eyes partially, for visual confirmation of her hearing, and I was able to get her to raise her head and stare sleepily only by making the elephant shuffle its feet without moving.His illustrated report India's Wildlife (1975) is a rigorously scientific document, perhaps the first and last of its kind to be produced in post- independent India. It is also Krishnan's magnum opus.Krishnan's forest visits were frequent and seemingly interminable.
He was away on one of his indefinite absences in a remote forest in 1970 when his wife, Indu, opened a telegram seeking Krishnan's willingness to receive the President of India's decoration of Padma Shri Indu wired "his" acceptance at once; she knew her husband. He carried out the assignment with matchless skill, monumental patience and unremitting labour His unique understanding of animal behaviour helped. Be it the dhole (wild dog) at Periyar (Kerala), the elephant in Mudumalai-Bandipur (Tamil Nadu-Kerala) or the tiger in Kanha (Madhya Pradesh), Krishnan understood, Blake-like, the immortal hand or eye that entitled him to frame its fearful symmetry. It had a cult following, and was read by ecologists and lay readers alike for its accuracy and authenticity, and for the quality of his English prose. Some of Krishnan's popular writings were put together in a fascinating book, Jungle and Backyard (1963, published in Britain in 1993 and still in print), which tells the story of a man who belongs to that margin of life where the human and animal worlds are not, after all, so separate It is illustrated not by photographs but by ink-drawings.