Hey you! Where’d you leave your integrity?
Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by Paul Burwell in Everything, Instructional, Workshops, Tours and Courses
I’m not going to discuss all of the ethical issues around photographing captive animals. It is a very touchy subject and it almost always degenerates into an emotional flame war. What I am going to discuss is truthfulness in wildlife photography as it pertains to the photography of captive animals. I hope I don’t come across as preachy here, but ethics are a big issue for me especially as they surround my chosen profession of wildlife photography.
The variety of locations that a photographer can make images of captive animals include zoos, wildlife parks, game farms, acquariums and some would even argue that some of the private game reserves in Africa qualify as captive animal photography locations. I take photographs of captive wildlife animals and I lead workshops at the Triple “D” Game Farm where I help other photographers go home with an impressive portfolio of images. I don’t make this a secret and it is nothing I am ashamed of in the least. I know the folks at Triple “D” very well and I know they care for the animals deeply and shed more than a tear when one of their animals passes away. I also know that the animals I photograph there are healthy and happy. The healthiness is apparent in the photographs, but the happiness is apparent to me when, at the end of a photography session, the animal happily goes off with the trainer into its crate or back into the truck for the ride back to the ranch. That tells me the animals are happy to be around the folks at Triple “D” and it helps me and my clients get better pictures.
Young Puma sitting on a snowy ledge - CA
- Canon 1Ds Mark II, 1/1000th of a second at F5
- 70-200 F2.8L IS, 1.4x Extender II (Teleconverter) @ 120mm, ISO 400
- Evaluative metering at +1 1/3 compensation to compensate for bright snowy conditions
- Gitzo 3541XLS Tripod with Jobu-Design Black Widow Gimbal Head
- Triple “D” Game Farm, Kalispell, Montana
I am also upfront about labelling my images of captive animals. If you see a wildlife image of mine and it has a “-CA” designation at the end of the photograph’s caption, that “CA” designation indicates that the subject of the photograph is a captive animal. I have no issues photographing happy and healthy wildlife surrogates and I also have no issues letting everyone know that the image they are viewing is an image of a captive animal. In fact, I go so far as to “burn” the “CA” designation into the metadata for the image. This way, even if my original captioning of an image disappears, anyone who is interested and in possession of a bit of technical skill will be able to read the metadata (or EXIF data) embedded in the image and discover for themselves that I’ve labelled the image with the captive animal designation. Alternately, any of my images without that “-CA” designation at the end of the photograph’s caption are images of wild animals able to come and go as they please.
I have a problem with photographers who pretend that the image they made of a captive animal was actually an image of a wild animal. In my opinion it is dishonest and does a disservice to the wildlife photography community. I also have an issue with what I consider a lie by omission. Some photographers don’t say whether their images of captive animals are of wild or captive and I think they do this as they’d prefer the public to assume they are viewing images of wild animals. I think this is dangerous to both photographers and animals because people may decide they want to get too close to a truly wild animal to get a great shot. Should the animal hurt the photographer both suffer because many times an animal that has attacked a human is subsequently killed. So an unwitting photographer, trying to duplicate the results they’ve seen of photographs of captive animals, ends up causing problems for themselves and the animal. That just doesn’t fit with my personal ethics.
Every once in a while I’ll come across a photographer who is lying about the “wildness” of their image(s) and I have no problem calling them on it. I’ll do it privately at first and if the person recants, removes or corrects their mistruth than I’ll let it rest there. But, if someone wants to go on publically lying about their image, I have no problem publicly pointing out their lie.
Here’s a little story. About a year ago I was surfing a well known nature photography web site when I came across an image of a Mountain Lion in their Fauna photography section. The person posting the image had concocted a wonderful story about how they’d heard from someone about a Mountain Lion that was known to come across an area of rocks most mornings. This person apparently visited that pile of rocks the Mountain Lion was known to frequent for several days in a row. Finally, after a week of this epic photographic adventure, sure enough a Mountain Lion appeared and the photographer managed to make a few images before the animal went on its way.
When I read this story, I thought to myself how fortunate the photographer had been to a) see a Mountain Lion in the wild, close up and b) to not have been eaten by said Mountain Lion who was obviously within 20 – 30 feet of the photographer. As I thought about the story more, it became obvious to me that the story was a little too good. Mountain Lions have a very large range and the odds that one would frequent an area so regularly seemed entirely unlikely to me. I studied the posted image closely and soon realized that the rock the Mountain Lion was climbing over looked very familiar to me. I decided to consult my Mountain Lion images which were all made at the Triple “D” Game Farm in Kalispell, Montana. Sure enough, I could match up the rock the lion was travelling over crack for crack, lichen for lichen. In addition to arguably completely oversaturating the colours in the image, the photographer posting the image was a bold faced liar who had concocted a story about photographing a wild animal when in reality they’d made a nice image of a Mountain Lion at the Triple “D” Game Farm. (Click on the image below or above for a larger view)
The Mountain Lion Liar - Identifying information removed
I immediately sent this photographer a private message. I detailed that I could exactly match the rocks and lichens in their image exactly by overlaying their image with one of mine in Photoshop and asked if they wanted to reconsider their story. The photographer never had the courage to respond to my message but rather deleted the image from the web site. I imagine that they would like to pretend that the incident never happened. While I would have preferred that the photographer showed a little intestinal fortitude by admitting their lie, I settled for the redaction.
There are many places in the world where one can photograph both captive and wild animals. If you decide to photograph captive animals, please have the temerity to label your images appropriately.
Agree or disagree? I’d love to hear from you.
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20 Responses to “Hey you! Where’d you leave your integrity?”
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Rich Charpentier
08. Sep, 2009
Thanks for another engaging post Paul. I’ve wondered often about how “wild” some shots really are. For the past summer I’ve been trying to get shots of a local bobcat and the local mountain lion near my home in Prescott, AZ. It’s not an easy task.
Once upon a time I entered a photo contest with a shot of a loon from Northern NH I took while paddling in the rain. A judge asked me why I presented a monochrome photo (Loons are black and white) and why I’d allow red eye to come through in the photo (loons have red eyes). The winning photo was a shot of a moose in captivity. I stopped entering that particular contest. No problem photographing captive animals, but there is a big difference to those of us trying to shoot in the wild.
JM
08. Sep, 2009
The lying starts at the very, very top with the camera manufacturers, and trickles down to the idiots who buy the crap. That’s a damn shame photogs have to have a “back story”.
This seems to also be prevalent in photo contests — where some of the winners are chosen due to the back story. Who cares? I am most concerned with content.
Anyway, great post.
J
John
08. Sep, 2009
Hi Paul,
I have felt a little awkward about taking photos of animals in captivity, such as in a zoo. I admire your attention to detail in categorizing your wildlife photos, but I do not agree that everyone should do it, nor do I recognize a photo of an animal in captivity as being less valid than one taken under different circumstances.
Of course, making up wild stories about how one took a picture of a captive animal sounds unethical, if not strange, to me. Yet, it may be this perceived difference in worthiness that causes such things to exist in the first place. If a picture of an animal in the wild is better than a 100% identical picture of the same animal in captivity, then people are encouraged to say that all of their images are of animals in the wild. I would say that if the two images are 100% identical, then they are of equal value. How the picture was captured is not important, because a photo is a photo in the end.
Photographer snobbery is something that is all too common and I think that passing judgement on the conditions of capture is a prime example of it. If we were to appreciate photos as being a finished product of a holistic photography process (i.e. setup, pressing the button, editing, publishing), then minor quarrels about the validity of one phase (i.e. my setup took place in a zoo, yours took place in “the wild”) would be inconsequential. Only the final product matters.
Paul Burwell
08. Sep, 2009
John,
I tend to agree with you that it’s the finished result that’s important rather than the conditions it was created under.
I also agree about your comment on photographer snobbery. I for one wish it would go away but that seems unlikely any time soon.
Sean Phillips
08. Sep, 2009
Great post Paul. I have no problem photographing captive animals and I have been a member at the Calgary Zoo for a long time. I have always included keywords in the metadata for my images indicating where they were created and if the animal was captive, and I usually discuss it in the text of my web postings as well (although certainly not always). I do this only to be up front and honest rather than to imply that images of wild animals are better then those of captive animals. Some people clearly think that to be true though so I don’t want to pretend my images are anything that they are not.
Suzy Walker
09. Sep, 2009
Hi Paul, another great post. It does seem a shame that people are so insecure that they have to lie to make themselves look bigger
that is the way of the internet I suppose. I thought that the CA in your caption was a place lol, I did wonder how you got so close to those snow leopards!! Thanks for letting us know what is a ‘real’ wild animal & what is not 
I always label the place I take my photos anyway, if its a zoo I say its a zoo. If its in the ocean I say which one, if its an aquarium I say which one. There is a lot of kudos either way. Zoos & aquariums have their own challenges just as taking wild photos do. I don’t really see the point of lying.
Suzy
Scott Rouse
09. Sep, 2009
Thanks for the article, Paul. I’ve heard of the exact same thing happening. A friend and colleague, Neil Corman, wrote about almost exactly the same story on his blog recently.
-Scott
Nele
11. Sep, 2009
Great post Paul, I totally agree with you on this. I am pretty new to wildlife photography but in most cases I can recognize the difference between captive and wild animals in pictures. I had a guy as a contact on flickr that had some amazing pictures of birds, I really liked them because in his descriptions he was saying that they are wild animals taken in the wild. Then couple of months later he uploaded a picture of an eagle stating that it was taken in the wild. After of couple of minutes staring at the picture and admiring it I decided to look at it in higher resolution and can you guess what I found, the birds leg was strapped to the pole with a leather band. I guess he was not paying enough attention to that small detail when he cropped it. That really made me feel stupid. I know that birds is not so hard to photograph (comparing to the big cats as mountain lions) in the wild if right equipment and blinds are used, but as you said why lie about pictures, I don’t know what do these people get from this. I’ve never been to any wildlife parks so I can’t say but most animals in zoos have very sad looking eyes which is not the case with wild animals.
G Dan Mitchell
12. Sep, 2009
Enjoyed your story and agree with your points. (As a landscape photographer I once called someone on a shot of The Racetrack in Death Valley – the site of the “moving rocks” and very familiar to me from a number of visits – that included a spectacular, cloud-filled sunset…. directly north of the playa… and populated with some very lovely sea birds.
But I was thinking about the mountain lion photographer’s description: Went to a place the lion was known to frequent for days… Someone said it frequented the same spot each morning… Spent a week trying to get the right shot.
As I read this it occurred to me that it could be “literally true” – if more than a bit misleading! Perhaps our photographer did hear that there was a captive mountain lion at the Triple “D” Game Farm in Kalispell, Montana. And it is true that the lion frequented this rock inside its compound. And that he spent a week at the farm waiting for just the right shot.
Funny how truth works. Every one of those statements could be a literal truth about photographing a captive animal – it is just the creation of the false impression of a wilderness stalking adventure that is upsetting.
Take care,
Dan
Mike Fuhr
12. Sep, 2009
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with photographing captive animals, but agree that you absolutely need to be forthright about this fact. Thanks for this great article. Also, I would suggest that when you name a photo and attach the CA to denote “captive,” that you use perhaps CAP instead. The CA may suggest to many that it was taken in California. That’s what I thought until reading the complete article!
Steve
15. Sep, 2009
Paul,
Good article again. I liked your point about photo ‘snobbery’ you find it a lot in the online community. I really like the idea of being proactive and labelling your shots (something I will do in the future).
I agree that the finished product should be judged or stand on it own merits. But, IMHO I get a lot more satisfaction capturing a great shot of an animal in the wild than in ‘captivity’. Usually this produces a good back story – really only relevant to myself but, there nontheless.
Cheers,
Steve
Kerry
26. Sep, 2009
I agree with you entirely. I will not place a comment on a photo, on sites such as flickr, unless I can see where the photograph was taken. I would be especially appalled at such a lie by a professional photographer.
Tim I.
28. Sep, 2009
I don’t care if the animal is wild or captive. A good shot is a good shot! If the photographer doesn’t say where it was taken, I don’t automatically assume that its a wild one. Now the story this photographer fabricated about their photo was a good reason to call him on it.
Atom Magadia
04. Oct, 2009
I agree with you 100%. I photograph captive animals for my fine art work, and I am very grateful to be given a chance to shoot these beautiful animals upclose. I love the trend in zoos and wildlife parks towards giving the animals a more natural habitat within their enclosures… it helps give my photograph a very “natural” look, but I have never claimed in public or even privately that my pictures where taken in the wild– in fact I take pride in telling people how I made a zoo photograph look like the real thing (plus I never take out walls but enhance them instead).
As a photographer and a filmmaker myself, I have the greatest admiration and respect for “field” (wilderness) wildlife photography and filmmaking, which I consider to be the hardest field in both disciplines — waiting for days, sometimes weeks hiding in the bushes, tolerating heat and cold as well as insects requires a special breed of men and women. Their dedication to their craft and art certainly deserves a special recognition above and beyond those of us who photograph animals in captivity because we have it easy.
How about starting an association of Captive Animal Photographers… then we can all use the CA designation behind all our “captive animal” photographs?
Mike Madonna
16. Oct, 2009
What about photographers baiting wild animals in Africa or the Tiger Parks in India “importing” tigers from the San Diego Zoo for each season? Perhaps another designation – WBB = wild but baited or WBFZ = wild, but from zoo?? Some, but not all, so called “field phtographers” have their own secrets!
Shannon Hudnell
22. Feb, 2010
I really admire your integrity and that you had the guts to confront the photographer about it. It amazes me how much people will lie to make themselves look better.