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Swimming with Elephants in the Andaman Islands
with Professional Photographer
Jonathan Kingston
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-Jonathan Kingston as told to Thann Clark
I had just started teaching on a two year assignment at India’s first college dedicated to photography when the Discovery Channel aired some old underwater Jacques Cousteau footage of elephants swimming in the Andaman Islands. I was awestruck by the beauty and grace of the footage, and as soon as I saw it, I knew I had to see this for myself.
 During one of my first breaks from teaching that winter, I arranged a flight from Chennai to Port Blair thinking it would be a relatively easy feat to find elephants swimming. As it turned out during the first trip I spent most of my time running around speaking with various government officials to try and arrange permission to photograph these swimming elephants.
Elephants in the Andaman Islands are considered to be government workers, who, at the end of their careers get to retire and even get a pension of a certain amount of banana leaves every day. As government workers they are not allowed to engage in dangerous activities, and swimming is considered dangerous for an elephant. To make a long story short, the first trip failed to get me in the water with the large mammals, but it did put me in contact with the right people in the Andaman Islands to get permission for the next attempt. Over one year later, I arranged a second trip to the islands and was able to secure permission to photograph the elephants swimming.
In Tamil they have a saying which goes “nallingayvanum” which loosely means “coming tomorrow” which is their way of saying “I don’t know what is going to happen.” So, even though I had secured permission with the forestry service, there was no guarantee that the shoot would actually happen. When I landed in Port Blair I had to take a canoe to Rutland Island with a representative. The government sent the representative along to act as go-between for me and the Mahoots.
 The Mahoots are the elephant’s caretakers, but it is a very symbiotic relationship. The elephants are considered part of the family. There are even stories of the elephants picking up their mahouts and bringing them home after a night of too much coconut moonshine. The Mahoots bond with their elephants for life.
After arriving on Rutland Island the forest service rep set up the shoot with a Mahoot for the following day. That next morning I prepped all my gear, which included a full scuba setup, my Nikkonos 5, and many rolls of film. Digital just wasn’t an option for this shoot.
When I got to the beach I was surprised to see the whole town, which was about 15 people, had come out to see me photograph the elephants swimming. Surely they had seen the elephants swim before, but it was a novelty to see a westerner in scuba gear and swim fins get into the water along side this magnificent beast.
We took a small canoe out about 30 meters and waited for the elephant to slowly wade out to us. I was still trying to figure out how I was going to shoot this and not get trampled. I got in the water and started to shoot but it was very murky as the elephant was kicking up a lot of sand as he walked. It was hard to get a decent shot.
I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. When the elephant got into deeper waters all of a sudden he took off swimming. It was like a 747 taking off from the runway, and He was fast! I never thought a dog paddling elephant could out swim me, but I was struggling to keep up, taking photos desperately while I swam as fast I could. The Mahoot had to keep turning the elephant back around towards me because I couldn’t keep up with them. I couldn’t believe after all of the planning and prepping that I was finally getting to shoot this, it was truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever experienced.
I had to surface every 5 minutes to change film, and when opening the housing on an underwater camera there is always the risk that a hair, or sand will get into the seal, and the housing will flood on the next dive down. So I tried to be very careful changing the film, I also had to make sure I didn’t tip over the canoe that was carrying my film and my backup camera. Luckily my housing didn’t flood that day and I was able to shoot 6 rolls of black and white and 2 of color. By the end of the shoot I was exhilarated but exhausted. I had done it, and I thought my challenges were over for this one.
 A couple days of later my excitement from the shoot turned to dread as the Port Blair airport security insisted my camera bag go through the x-ray. As you know film plus x-ray means trouble. These were not the newer machines, they were film killers, and I knew it. I managed to talk my way up to the head of security, a mustached army officer, who understood the importance of the situation. He hand checked my bag and personally carried it out to the belly of the plane. Whew, that was a very close call.
The obstacles weren’t over. When I got back to the school in Ooty, I still had to anxiously wait for the film to be processed. Even though the school had its own E-6 machine, it didn’t have a perfect record of successful film development. I thought about waiting to have the film developed when I got back to the states, but that would mean another year of waiting, and possibly more spirited discussions with airport security. I took my chances, and luckily the film gods were with me. All of the images came out, and needless to say with over a year in the making, I was very happy with the results. I don’t think I have ever done another shoot where so much could have gone wrong but everything went right.
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Jonathan Kingston is a freelance photographer currently based in Bend, Oregon. Since 2002 he has been traveling the globe, making images of our world that have appeared in various publications including National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic Traveler and Geo Saison. Jonathan also teaches a number of photographic workshops around the country, and has recently authored an instructional DVD for Software-Cinema. He was faculty of India's first photographic college, Light & Life Academy. Jonathan specializes in travel, underwater and adventure photography, which dovetail with his passions of seeing the world, diving and spending time in the world’s wild places. When not working, Jonathan likes to spend his time rock climbing, surfing and snowboarding. To read about his adventures visit his blog at http://www.thenomadicphotographer.com and to see his work visit http://www.jonathankingston.com or http://www.auroraphotos.com |
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Thann Clark is a graduate of the Brooks Institute of Photography, where he received the departmental award for excellence in Commercial Photography, after the other nominated students died under mysterious circumstances. He is trying very hard to do nothing with his life, but acheivements keep getting in the way. He has a lot of friends who are much better Photographers, but his mother loves him very much. He has done Important Work for Important people, but he hates to name drop.
Thann Clark presents "an irreverent look at photography from an industry insider" on his blog, Thannalog: The Answer to Digital. |
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