Aishwarya Sridhar Becomes The First Indian Woman To Win The Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Award. What An Accomplishment!
Dainty. Petite. Sensitive. Emotional. These are only a few words that are often used to describe women be it in books with female protagonists, magazines, movies or even everyday conversations. Women are always the soft spoken, delicate ones while men are assumed to be tough, daring and adventurous. Except, things are changing now, for women aren’t just replacing men in the context of these adjectives, but also in professions that were once solely reserved for the male population. And one such occupation that was always deemed too dangerous for women was that of wildlife photography. However, proving everyone wrong and how is Aishwarya Sridhar, the first Indian to win the Wildlife Photographer of the Year award.
Not only did she choose to enter a field that would make anyone apprehensive, but also managed to excel in it, by being winning this award among thousands of entries that were sent in. To be specific, Aishwarya Sridhar’s photo was picked from about 50,000 entries from over 80 countries across the world, out of which only a 100 were shortlisted.
Winning this prestigious accolade in the Behaviour Invertebrates category, her image that won her this honour was titled ‘Lights of passion’ and was captured using one of Canon’s premium DSLRs — EOS-1DX Mark II. And looking at it, you would know that she deserves the award – the beautiful and magnificent sight is….well, spectacular.
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A big moment for India and for me as a young wildlife photographer. Being the first and youngest girl to win this award from India in the Adult category, its a huge honour for me to receive this award !!
Thank you to the entire Jury and WPY team. https://t.co/i6mU8VKW4j
— Aishwarya Sridhar (@Aishwaryasridh9) October 14, 2020
Taking to Twitter to share her news, Aishwarya wrote, “A big moment for India and for me as a young wildlife photographer. Being the first and youngest girl to win this award from India in the Adult category, its a huge honour for me to receive this award !! Thank you to the entire Jury and WPY team.”
The announcement was made on October 13 at the Natural History Museum in London and came as a big accomplishment not just to Aishwarya but to all the women in our country who have more often than not been pushed into a box and told they weren’t good enough.
Aishwarya Sridhar is a wildlife photographer, writer and filmmaker by profession and also a conservationist. She is also the youngest member of the State Wetland Identification Committee appointed by the Bombay High Court, and now also the first Indian to bring back this reputable accomplishment.
