Tiger tales: World Press Photo 2022 award-winner Senthil Kumaran on documenting human-tiger conflict in India

“I feel like I’m getting too much attention,” says documentary photographer Senthil Kumaran. Based in Madurai, the 39-year-old has won the prestigious World Press Photo 2022 award in the Long Term Story (Asia Region) category.

Ever since the announcement last week, after Prime Minister MK Stalin sent a congratulatory tweet, he seems a little baffled at the flow of phone calls he’s handling. “There are so many photographers who haven’t received even the slightest recognition,” he says. But there’s a reason people want to talk to him.

The series titled Boundaries: Human-Tiger Conflict, which earned him the award, is unlike any other documentation on the issue to date. Photojournalists and conservationists have been monitoring the conflict for a long time. But what sets Senthil’s work, the culmination of 10 years of documentation across India, is the way he brings out the delicate balance between humans and animals. His camera neither judges nor blames: to him, the people who inhabit the forest are just as important as the tigers they share their borders with.

Senthil’s series, shot in black and white, has an eerie quality to it. He captures majestic tigers in their weakest moments: there are shots of dying tigers, tigers just caged, wary villagers looking for a man-eating tiger roaming their neighborhood, a lone tiger peeking out from behind. a tree looking straight into the camera… Some compositions send a shiver down our spine: like the photo of an elderly tribeswoman cutting bushes on her own, in a place where just three days ago a lady had been killed by a tiger.

Senthil did a master’s degree in computer applications and worked in IT before quitting his job to take up photography. Today, like a conservationist, he talks about the science behind human-animal conflict. “This is the result of the years I have spent in the field,” he says. “I have documented 10 animal operations in the past 10 years by the Forest Department in Tamil Nadu. Four of those were tiger operations.”

Senthil has had contact with tribes that revere tigers, as well as people who abhor them. “But I wouldn’t be so quick to blame the latter,” he says. “Imagine losing the only cow you own—the lifeblood of your family—to a tiger.”

He has also seen up close how our forests are being destroyed. “More than 80% of this accounts for the extraction of minerals to meet the needs of city dwellers. Everything from our cell phones to the paper we use comes from forests.”

Senthil knows that his photos will not change the world. “But they changed me; I feel guilty about the way I’ve lived,” he says, adding: “I am now aware of the greenhouse gases I emit and have taken steps to reduce it.” He plans to travel by public transport as much as possible. “Even if we use a toothbrush for a month longer than we planned, it will benefit our forests,” he says.

A self-taught photographer, Senthil says he’s learned techniques by following World Press Photo award entries over the past 20 years. “I didn’t expect to win; but this is a huge honour,” he says.

He says his love for forests started when he was a little boy. “My aunt and grandmother told me stories about animals and forests; I had teachers who read wonderful stories from books,” he says. Years later, it was only natural that Senthil was drawn to the world he visualized during his childhood.

Wandering through the forests of India has enriched him with stories. He’s seen a tiger take its last breath, meet majestic elephants that were once wild, and now follow a man’s instructions. “I hope to write a book one day,” Senthil says. “I wonder if photography is the right medium.”