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Ian Lockwood's artistic lens reveals the hidden wonders of the Western Ghats
Updated On: 23 November, 2023 01:17 AM IST | Mumbai | Tanishka D’Lyma
Ian Lockwood’s latest photo exhibition that opens today aims to understand the unique landscapes of the Western Ghats through his three-decade journey and a new lens
Bombay Shola, named in 1852 by one Major Partridge of the Bombay Army, who camped there
If someone told us Mahabaleshwar was a sky island, we would agree. It’s an escape to cooler temperatures and pretty views. But the term isn’t a romantic one. As educator, photographer, and environmentalist, Ian Lockwood shares, it is used to describe an elevated (mountainous) area that is considerably different from the biodiversity of its surrounding plain areas. He adds, “These areas are separated from the lower and warmer plains, where species get isolated and become [endemic]. Each island has its own unique features and that is why they are called ‘sky islands’ and not one island.” At Sky Island Exhibition: An Endangered Landscape, which opens today at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Lockwood portrays these ancient (which are older than the Himalayas!) landscapes of the Southern Western Ghats or Shola Sky Islands through photographs spanning three decades.
At a recent panel discussion, science photographer Prasenjeet Yadav, Lockwood’s colleague and friend, whom he endearingly calls Prasen, verbally drew a picture of the Western Ghats. The image that was conjured in the writer’s mind was identical to the exhibition’s poster image of the sky islands when we came across it later. The morning he landed in Mumbai from Sri Lanka, Lockwood completed the term’s description, calling it a sea of haze from which you can see other sky islands (or mountain tops) sticking out. Now picture that view from a tourist point at Mahabaleshwar. Do you see the sky islands?
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