Shooting the changing scenes on Palani Hills

CHENNAI: Ian Lockwood was barely six months old when his US-based parents decided to make the

Western Ghats

their home. While they kept moving to different cities, they let Lockwood finish his schooling in

Kodaikanal

. It was these young years, growing up amid nature that left a mark on the boy. Innumerable treks across the Ghats followed, and it was the Palani Hills that fascinated him. It eventually became a subject of his documentation project that spans almost 30 years now.

Lockwood knew how the wind blew over the hills, the rainfall pattern and the varying terrain. As Lockwood enjoyed the natural beauty, ecological changes in the region disturbed him. Using his lenses, he started documenting how human intervention caused a tangible impact on the biodiversity and hydrology of the hills. "My work attempts to bridge science with art and conservation and I am mindful that it should not be confused with picturesque approaches to beautiful locations," says Lockwood, an environmental educator, photographer and writer based in Sri Lanka. His decades long work through photographs and maps will be on display at

DakshinaChitra

from July 6 to 30.

Titled ‘The Hills of Murugan: landscape, ecology and change in the Palani hills’, the exhibition is a compilation of nearly 30 years of documentation and 48 years of Lockwood’s experience of exploring the region. During this time increases in timber plantations, agricultural areas and the urban sprawl have led to dramatic ecological changes. The choice of photographs and maps in the exhibition illustrate these changes and the emergence of hybrid ecology in the hills.

Struggling for the past 15 years with how best to print and share his work, the black-and-white images was a conscious choice. "With the advent of digital printing, my darkroom was mothballed, and I tinkered with learning new skills to make black-and-white prints," says Lockwood.

While the 32 framed prints illustrate the themes of landscape and ecology, a series of annotated posters and maps highlight the key species of the region and will give visitors a better sense of the region’s biodiversity. Family friend and veteran herpetologist Romulus Whitaker will be inaugurating the exhibition at DakshinaChitra at 4.30pm on July 6. "Rom was a natural choice. His early snake catching was in Palani hills. My uncle, Charles Emerson, was Rom’s roommate in school when he used to keep snakes under his bed. I have many memories of outings with Rom when we went fishing and looking for snakes during my school years in the 1980s," says Lockwood.