PRASENJEET YADAV: STORIES FROM A LIFE IN THE WILD

Tigers tussle for their territory in the forest of Ranthambore Reserve in Rajesthan, India. Yadav witnessed the entire dispute, lasting several hours. Eventually, one of the big cats would slink away in defeat.

Interview by Mary Anne Potts

Photographs by Prasenjeet Yadav

Prasenjeet Yadav is a National Geographic photographer and Explorer, which is just to say, he is incredibly talented and motivated to change the world. A scientist by training—he has advanced degrees with subjects like biotechnology, biochemistry and immunology—Yadav brings his critical thinking to storytelling. 

Born and raised on a farm in Central India, he embraces the challenges his country faces, while trying to convey the importance of conservation. His focus on wildlife and nature in India’s most remote locations requires exceptional patience and a large dose of physical stamina (in recent years and in 2020, he spent months at a time in sub- zero temperatures in the far reaches of Ladakh and Himachal).  It’s through this rigor and drive that his photography appeared in the July 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine, in an intimate look at the lives of snow leopards. Not bad for a kid who grew up with tigers passing through his yard. 

—Mary Anne Potts

Tigers paid frequent visits to Yadav’s parent’s farm where he grew up. Located in central India, roughly 50 kilometers (32 miles) from Nagpur City, he enjoyed a childhood immersed in nature. Yadav would go on to study tiger ecology in graduate school, before pursuing a career in nature photography, and has had several close encounters with the highly endangered species.

Mary Anne Potts: As a scientist and science communicator, you seem to have had the ideal childhood, completely immersed in nature—you even had tigers visiting your yard when you were growing up?

Prasenjeet Yadav: I grew up at my father’s farm in the middle of the jungle of central India, so we still literally have tigers coming and walking on our lawn. People used to go to see tigers and see wildlife… and I just had to step out of my house! I’m blessed that way. 

MP: Were people excited and happy to see tigers so near? Or were they scared and upset about it?

PY: There were no resident tigers around the place while I was growing up. And other villagers were a few kilometers away. So when tigers came around, we were completely isolated. They used to move around our property, as it was adjacent to a tiger dispersal corridor. I know that it’s a completely different feeling seeing a tiger from a safari jeep versus living in an isolated place with your family with a big predator walking right outside your house. I don’t think most people have experienced that kind of fear. 

MP: How did you end up studying science? What life experiences led you there?

Yadav at work documenting endemic species in the mountain valleys of the Western Ghats, India. If you would like to book Prasenjeet for your event or conference, contact us.

PY: This was all I knew about and all I wanted to do. Sorry, that’s a very non-spicy answer! My bachelor’s was in chemistry, zoology, and biotechnology. And my master’s subjects were immunology, biotechnology, biochemistry. At that time, there were only two institutes in the country that could give you a conservation biology degree. And they were alternate years. The year I was there, the degree wasn’t available so I decided on a master’s in molecular biology because I was always interested in biology. And then I figured out a way to apply it to ecology. When I started doing my research, I joined a lab in Bangalore that uses molecular techniques. They study DNA to understand tiger movement and

populations. So I’m more of a DNA guy, and the DNA I was studying was wildlife DNA.

Even with the storytelling I do, I follow the same model that I used to follow as a researcher. You have this assumption or a hypothesis—this is what people think, this could be probable.

MP: Do you see any similarities between your scientific studies and storytelling?

PY: If we are talking about storytelling that is more nonfiction--reportage, journalistic storytelling—I think that it’s a complete parallel. Even with the storytelling I do, I follow the same model that I used to follow as a researcher. You have this assumption or a hypothesis—this is what people think, this could be the probable. But to understand or come to a conclusion, you go out and you do your background research. You go out and collect data. After you collect data, you analyze it. And after the analysis, you come to a conclusion. That is exactly how I approach my stories.

MP: Is there something extra that comes into storytelling that’s maybe more artistic or emotional for you?

PY: Absolutely. This is the outer structure, what I fill into it is beyond data. It’s more emotions, experiences, and that is something not entirely science- based. Science is about facts which are supported by carefully collected and analyzed data that lead to a logical, hypothesis-tested conclusion. So 

science is objective and it has to be, for its own reasons. But storytelling does not have to be objective. I follow this model, or structure, because I like to believe that I’m telling important nonfiction stories. I want to show reality to people. I’m having a tough time making people see the reality, believe it, and act on it. What makes this reality unique, are my personal experiences and emotions.

A Great Hornbill brings fruit to a female’s nest in the Western Ghats mountains of India.

MP: I think that’s a helpful perspective on storytelling.

PY: Because I do it this way, none of my stories are 20 days, 15 days, or one week. I want to tell first-hand stories of the natural world. I don’t want to do “helicopter storytelling.” I end up working on these stories at least for a year or more because wildlife and natural history stories require this amount of time: Where I spend enough time to actually experience, see things firsthand, to actually learn from it, so that I’m not telling a story of someone who told me something. It’s more of, “This is what I experienced, this is what I saw.” And I find those stories more meaningful, at least for now. I have produced several stories so far, and all of them have been these long-term projects.

I spent close to five years focused on pure academics and scientific storytelling—my real strength was in storytelling. I enjoyed talking about the research and helping people understand it more than actually practicing it. And this interest grew more and more over the years.

MP: How do you find the funding to do a year-long story? 

PY: Because of my research and academic background, I have an edge that I can write grants. I can take funding to do these projects out of grants. I also collaborate with scientists, and that helps me a lot with logistical support. I receive support from the researchers and scientists with whom I collaborate. And in return, I give them my work for free for their academic and educational purposes. It’s not a perfect model, but that is how I’ve been working so far. I’ve started to receive some funding from individual donors, which has been crucial in difficult, technology-oriented stories, which have larger budgets. Also, commissions every now and then help move things forward. 

MP: How did you make the transition from scientist to storyteller?

PY: I spent close to five years focused on pure academics and scientific storytelling--my real strength was in storytelling. I enjoyed talking about the research and helping people understand it more than actually practicing it. And this interest grew more and more over the years. At 23 or 24 years old, I just decided to quit my potential Ph.D. research at one of the most prestigious research institutes in India. I thought, “I’m gonna make my living out of photography and storytelling.” And that’s how the transition happened. It was a moment, a decision, without planning. I jumped into the water; I had to figure out how to swim. One thing leads to another. I started working with different people and on different stories, and slowly things started shaping up for me. Honestly, I feel things worked out for me as I happened to do the right projects at the right time. I wouldn’t recommend anyone else to take the route I took, given the obvious risks. 

Yadav documented freshwater river systems in the valleys of India’s Western Ghats mountains. Infested with leeches, venomous snakes, and constant rains, these landscapes presented him with a host of challenges. If you would like to book Prasenjeet for your event or conference, contact us.

MP: And how long did it take to get those first stories and assignments ?

PY: When I was a research student, a person from the BBC research team had come to India along with a local producer friend of mine. They were looking for stories in India for their BBC series called The Wonders of Monsoon, and I ended up pitching a few stories. Six months down the line when I quit, literally the same week, I got contacted by the team saying, “You know the idea you had pitched? Would you be interested in helping us film that?” So I think I was blessed I got a job with BBC through the local producer from India, who is a good friend of mine, immediately after I was out of academics. I spent a few months with BBC on that.

MP: How is conservation storytelling a unique challenge in India, and why is it so important?

A Golden-backed frog prepares to spring into a pool of water in the Western Ghats of India. Originally found in Sri Lanka, this species was later discovered across the Western Ghats, as well as other areas of the country.

PY: Conservation storytelling is difficult because India is one of the developing countries. It is a country with a population of 1.3 billion. We are growing at a rate of 15 million people every year. We are going to plateau in 2035, and at that time the predictions show that our population is going to be around 1.62 billion. And we are still a country where the majority of the population is living on the edge of poverty. 

In a country like this, it’s difficult to talk to people about climate change when they don’t know what they’re going to eat that night, or where they are going to live, or will they have jobs or not. So, trying to convince them to do something that is environmentally friendly? It’s very difficult.

MP: You have recently been on an expedition to an island off of India that would maybe be an interesting thing to talk about?

PY: Yes, sure. So it’s more of a geopolitical story, but I want to focus more on the ecological aspect of it. That is, an island, in the middle of the Indian Ocean. An island of seven square kilometers [2.5 Square miles], it’s a tiny island, uninhabited. But it is home to a species of hornbill which is found nowhere else in the world but just on this island. It’s called the Narcondam hornbill—named after the Island.

I was accompanying four of my really good biologist friends—one a botanist, one seed dispersal ecologist, and two hornbill ecologists. I went there with them essentially to do a reconnaissance trip to see what the story is. But the interesting part is that it is the most remote part in the country, and the most difficult place to get to. You need a lot of permits from the government of India to go there. The Navy drops you a few kilometers away from the island because there is no soft landing. And you are in these rubber boots and you go onto the island and the ship is like, “Okay, see you after a month!” And then you are completely isolated with no phone and no connectivity, no electricity, on this one small island for a month.

MP: How did you like that level of isolation?

PY: I enjoyed it for the duration of the month, as there was so much to explore and learn on the island! This was the first time I have ever been on the island, so it was good! And I’ve been working in the Himalaya where it is equally isolated, but in a different sense: Working there is very physically draining. I crave isolation at times. Now with Covid-19, I’m speaking to my friends who are like, “you know what? This isolation in my apartment is killing me!”  And I’m like, “Ah, it’s not that bad!’’ 

On the island we had a team of five people, so I wasn’t alone. But because I was focusing more on the documentation of hornbills, I spent most of my time by myself.

While in the Western Ghats of India to document the region's unique SkyIslands, Yadav captured this image of a green meteor above an ocean of lights from Mettupalayam, a small city in southern India. The green hue is a result of oxygen heating up around the meteor, combined with the mix of minerals ignited as the rock enters Earth's atmosphere.

MP: Let’s talk about one of your most published photos—the meteorite. It looks like you stayed up all night to get it, and yet that is not the reality at all. What happened?

PY: My good friend and National Geographic photographer Anand Varma and I were taking a road trip in India. I was focused on a story on Sky Islands of the Western Ghats at that point, and I wanted a time lapse to show that these mountains are not only isolated by a deep valley, but also floating in the sea of urbanization. At 2 a.m. we found this location and we started this time lapse. Our cameras were set at different times and different intervals. And out of 1,000 images that the camera shot, each image was a 15 second exposure, with a 10 second gap. One of those images actually ended up capturing this meteorite. 

The lucky part is not that the meteor showed up in the picture, but where the meteorite showed up in the picture. 

I think I was the luckiest photographer on the planet for those 15 seconds. Out of multiple cameras we had, only one camera caught it properly as they were each shooting on different time intervals. We got lucky, but also we were the only two photographers on that mountain doing the time lapse at 2 a.m. in the morning. 

I’ve been interviewed by so many people about the picture because it won one of the National Geographic contests and it went really viral around the world thanks to all the funny memes around it. And somehow, people kept interviewing me, and I said, “I went out and I was lucky to get this picture.” The lucky part is not that the meteor showed up in the picture but where the meteorite showed up in the picture. If you pulled the meteorite out, trust me, there is no other composition that makes more sense than this. But now, it is a composed image of a beautiful meteorite.  

MP: And did it look to your bare eye the same way it looked in the image?

PY: I was sleeping! We both were sleeping! We were sleeping on the side of the road next to the car.

MP: So did you wake up and rush to see your cameras?

PY: No! We woke up, and Anand saw the time lapse. Anand had three of the cameras. And one, a truly wide-angle camera did have a streak of this meteorite in it. So he did capture it, but the meteor wasn’t prominent enough. Then in the afternoon when I was reviewing the images and that’s when I was like, “Hey, something’s wrong with my camera!” And then he comes and he sees it and he’s like, “Looks like something showed up in your camera! Dude, this is a meteorite!” That’s when we realized that we captured something really interesting in the camera.

MP: That’s so cool. Well yes I can’t wait to see that again. You just were published in the July issue of National Geographic—both your photography and as a subject in the story—in an incredible article about snow leopards. What is the premise of the story?

PY:  I started working on the story back in 2017, and a very good friend of mine who is a scientist and a National Geographic explorer, Dr. Kulbhushansingh Suryawanshi, worked on snow leopards, and I always wanted to collaborate with him. There was a collaboration grant from National Geographic to fund explorer teams to go out and do a field project with a story. We applied for it and received funding to research and document snow leopards in India, Mongolia, and Kyrgyzstan. 

This image of a female Snow Leopard and her two cubs was captured by a camera trap set up by Yadav in 2018 in the higher climbs of the Himalaya in the state of Himachal Pradesh.

When I started working on this story in summer of 2017, it was essentially about mountain goats and snow leopards. Since then, until literally the end of March 2020, I was just working on that. 

MP: Can you think about an intense moment you had in the field, and how you resolved it? 

PY: Quite a few, I would say. When I went into the mountains to do the story on snow leopards, there were many nights in snowstorms without the necessary warm gear,  which was tough. Initially when I started doing the camera trapping, I had no clue how to do it. And I started doing it with one of the most elusive species in the world—the snow leopard! And somehow I had that borderline arrogance—or perhaps just confidence—in my mind where I thought, “I’ll figure it out.” 

Yadav followed and photographed this snow leopard in Himachal Pradesh for several days—only yards away. He would find the old male's remains the following year, after it fell off a cliff while in pursuit of prey.

But to do that I used to walk out 15 to 20 kilometers [9 to 12 miles] away from my base camp in late afternoon to set up my traps and then it would take me and the team of local field researchers a couple of hours to set them up. And then I would do the light testing at night. Around midnight we used to walk back 15 to 17 km in waist-deep snow in sub zero temperatures. I wouldn’t recommend anyone to do it. It wasn’t fun, I would say.

MP: What would you say is the greatest challenge in your work?

PY: It’s the ever-evolving business of storytelling—at times I find it hard to keep up with it. I think I’m still that romantic storyteller who just picks a story and does it for years because I want to do it in the best possible way. But the industry is very competitive, and you have to constantly be on your toes to stay afloat. In my case, me vanishing for years to work on one story does impact my business. 

I grew up following the work of photographers Nick Nichols, Steve Winter, Tim Laman, Christian Ziegler and Charlie Hamilton James, who have actually produced these long stories, and they speak about the importance of long form natural history storytelling. Now times have changed so much, that even the organizations which used to support this kind of work are having a tough time continuing the model. 

But I still spend months, years in isolation, out of connectivity, doing natural history storytelling from a country like India. I think it’s really difficult because I have no connection with what’s happening in the West—and the global storytelling scene—when I am in the field. I barely get to speak to other people. And I didn’t have a peer group in India when starting out, which made things really challenging. 

MP: How did you navigate these hurdles and what helped you move forward?

PY: Yes, this wasn’t easy and the path had to be carved but by no means did I do it by myself. I have been blessed with some incredible mentors and supporters who have gone out of their way to help me move forward over the years. 

Here in India, my research advisor, Dr. Uma Ramakrishnan, and my colleagues Dr. Kulbhushan Singh and Dr. Robin have been the greatest supporters while I was making a switch from academics into science communication. 

Rhacophorus lateralis, a tree frog found only in two small valleys of the Western Ghats—in Kerala and Karnataka—at an elevation of 800 - 1200 meters (2600 - 3,900 feet).

After I transitioned to photography, I received a grant from National Geographic. Then I happened to meet National Geographic photographer Anand Varma when he was visiting India for a vacation, and we became friends immediately. Over the years he tactfully switches roles from being a close friend to a trusted mentor, and in this way he helped me grow as a photographer and storyteller. Later I met Rebecca Martin who had started the Young Explorers Program at the National Geographic Society, and she noticed me and my work. I think she pushed my work in NatGeo more than anyone over the years, and that helped me to continue producing better work. 

Last but not the least, I have a wonderful family who gave me freedom early on: While they told me they wouldn’t be able to support my ventures financially, they assured me that if I fail, I can fall back on them. I think that’s my biggest privilege. 

Over the last couple of decades, we have realized the importance of scientific storytelling. Science needs to be disseminated to larger audiences. So collaborate with scientists.

MP: What advice do you have for other storytellers who want to integrate science into their stories in meaningful ways?

PY: Every story should be accurately told. There is no excuse for not doing the right research. And if you don’t understand something, it does not mean that it doesn’t make sense. One can always reach out to people to understand things better--so you can integrate science, and reason deeply. 

Also, collaborate with researchers. We really need researchers, and they need us!

Over the last couple of decades, we have realized the importance of scientific storytelling. Science needs to be disseminated to larger audiences. So collaborate with scientists. It’s our assumption that scientists are these quirky people who wouldn't speak to you, but they do! They are realizing the importance of storytellers, so they want to collaborate with storytellers—they want to explain their work, they want to communicate more broadly.

Yadav documented the living tree bridges of the northeastern state Meghalaya, India—structures hand-woven from the roots of the Ficus elastica tree. This image of a unique two-tiered bridge was featured in his article on the National Public Radio website. Lasting a hundred years or more, the bridges provide local peoples safe passage during monsoon season when rivers swell.

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Connect with Prasenjeet Yadav on Facebook and Instagram. Visit his website to see more of his work.

Check out Prasenjeet’s coverage of  snow leopards in the July 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine, and his documentation of the root bridges of Meghalaya, India featured this month on the website of National Public Radio,