Media Release from 2002

bagh! BAGH!  (tiger! TIGER!) an exhibition of photographs taken in the wild jungles of India by Christian Pearson will be showing at the Charles Smith Gallery from September 23 to October 20, 2002. bagh! BAGH!  is part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival 2002.

Christian spent four months traveling in India, heading into the jungles of Ranthambhore National Park 14 times, in the hope of catching a glimpse of the biggest and most majestic of all the cats; the tiger. The images show the beauty and elegance that the tiger is famous for. From the nonchalance of a regal male resting in the cool of a pond to escape the searing 44C heat, to a tigress stealthily camouflaged against the dry deciduous forest and the menacing teeth of another tigress as she yawns and sets herself to begin the evening’s hunt. The exhibition also includes one of the rarest of scenes, a family of 6 tigers relaxing together after devouring a spotted dear. What makes this scene so extraordinary is that the father is interacting with his offspring, frequently a fatal move for a cub. This amazing photograph of a tiger’s family life is one of only a handful of times that a moment like this has been captured on film.

The tiger is indeed a real living lord of the jungle but for how much longer? With approximately 6000 tigers left surviving in the wild and over half of those inhabiting one of the most populous countries in the world - India - room and time for these extraordinary creatures is running out. There are now more tigers kept in captivity (thought to be more than 10,000 in the U.S alone) than there are living free in the wild. Because of this frightening statistic, 10% of all profits from the exhibition  will be donated to the Global Tiger Patrol. Global Tiger Patrol is a non-governmental organisation working directly to save the remaining wild populations of tigers in the world.

bagh! BAGH! will also be running concurrently in London from October 11th 2002, as part of the world premiere of the IMAX film ‘India, Kingdom of the Tiger’.

bagh! BAGH!, a photographic exhibition of tigers in the wild by Christian Pearson will be showing at Charles Smith Gallery, 65 Smith Street, Fitzroy from the 23rd September to the 20th October 2002.

All images photographed using:

Camera body: Nikon F601

Lens: Nikon Ai-s 600mm f/4 IF Lens ED Ais

Film: Fuji Velvia 100 E6 Colour Transparency film