Many people have some kind of a phobia when it comes to coming face to face with the lizard category. Even I have it. Talking about the chameleon category, they’re the masters of disguise and can camouflage themselves neatly to go unnoticed many a times. Well I haven’t ever seen a chameleon changing it’s color or haven’t researched on whether a Common Indian Chameleon can actually change colors or not, but one of my friend and I had a good laugh about one of the childhood beliefs that if you see a chameleon change colors seven times you’d die. Wow, that was totally funny and it now felt quite laughable that we used to actually close our eyes whenever we saw a Common Indian Chameleon. Well now, it would be great to see a chameleon, for that matter, any chameleon to change its color.
I started taking interest in capturing pictures of bugs, bees, butterflies and other creatures after I discovered the “city-jungle” that I had discovered and mentioned about in my post about Nature Photography. It’s then that I actually witnessed a Common Indian Chameleon prey on an insect. Although I couldn’t take the photo with the chameleon’s tongue out but did manage to capture insect partly out of the chameleon’s mouth. The location, distance, evening light etc was just about perfect to get those pictures. It allowed me to capture some close-ups with the scales and texture of the chameleon clearly visible with great amount of detailing and sharpness.
My 2nd close encounter with a chameleon was when I had visited one of our friend’s 2nd home in Ambivli village, Maharashtra. Their backyard which they use for farming is actually lush green and surrounded by trees. The fencing was made of a cloth like green material and a lot of yellow, dried grass around. To accompany that friend’s family, since it was village like set up, there were quite a few chameleons and lizards outside. When I took my Canon EOS70D out for a shoot, I noticed a few bugs and bees along with a few chameleons. One of the chameleons tht was moving around, suddenly happened to stop after it saw me coming closer. It went completely still to an extent that it didn’t move for at least 10 minutes and remained in the same pose with one of the front limbs in the air and holding the cloth with the other limb, looking right at the camera. That was one sight to watch.
Well despite moving so close to these creatures on many occasions and also once holding them in hand during a nature camp at Maharashtra Nature Park, I don’t think my phobia about seeing lizards has changed. But I’ll continue to take picture at every possible opportunity. 🙂
Here’s a small collection of Common Indian Chameleon photos.