The tiger is the animal every Indian forest seems to hold its breath for. Long before I see one, the forest tells me it is near — a langur's alarm call, a spotted deer barking, a sudden silence where there was birdsong. Much of tiger photography is learning to read that tension.
I have photographed tigers mainly in Tadoba and Corbett, across the harsh light of the Indian summer, when the forest thins and animals gather at water. The waiting is long and often unrewarded; then a striped shape steps onto the track as though it had been there all along, and the hours become worth it.
No two tigers wear their stripes the same way, and no two encounters feel alike. I keep returning not for a trophy frame but for those few unhurried seconds when a tiger simply exists in front of you, entirely in command of its world.
