
There’s a good chance wildlife photos weren’t shot in the wild - pmcpinto
https://qz.com/969811/game-farm-photography-love-wildlife-photos-theres-a-good-chance-they-werent-shot-in-the-wild
======
grecy
I can relate to this.

I am in West Africa now, and have seen a number of wild Chimps and Gorillas,
seriously far in the jungle. Rain, mud, fog, etc. play hell on the cameras,
and I can only get to within a few hundred yards before I am told that's close
enough and/or the animals leave.

The photos are worse than bad.

I just spent a week at a great conservation project where I was just a few
yards away from many, many chimps for 30+ hours. (behind electric fence).

The photos are the best I have ever taken in my life. (not online yet, coming
soon @theroadchoseme)

~~~
maxxxxx
I have also struggled with getting great shots until I learned how many tricks
are commonly used like feeding animals, cooling down insects so they don't
move or shooting in a confined areas. It makes me feel a little better that
rarely get any good shots without using these tricks.

~~~
magic_beans
If all of this has to be done for taking photos of wild animals, how does
BBC's Planet Earth do it? The footage they get is incredible.

~~~
prawn
The making-ofs are incredible and worth watching. For one piece of footage,
the camera guy was in a bird hide for weeks on end, waiting. I can't imagine
the boredom! In another, they used a hot air balloon. And from a technical
perspective, the bit where they're shooting sharks in super slow mo is
interesting. All of those are on the Planet Earth 1 DVD box set - I'm sure
there are digital options around.

~~~
SPBesui
It still gets stuck in my head: My Bird of Paradise...

------
toomanybeersies
I can relate to this on a slightly different level.

I've never really done wildlife photography, but I've done a decent amount of
hunting, and spend a decent bit of time near game farms (but never hunted on
one). Hunting here in New Zealand is very different from the USA, it requires
a lot of walking and actually finding animals, so you end up covering a lot of
ground and spend a lot of time looking at things through binoculars. I've seen
a lot of animals from far away, getting close to them is a different matter.

In the open, it's seriously hard to get near animals. They have better sight,
hearing, and smell than us, and can run faster up steeper terrain than us.
This applies to most game animals. It's not easier in the bush, deer stalking
is not an easy skill. They also tend to stand in annoying places that are hard
to climb to, and wouldn't be very nice for photos.

Wild animals tend to avoid humans, because humans have guns.

On the other hand, one day, we were driving past a game farm, and there was a
serious trophy stag just sitting 50 m from the road behind a deer fence, would
probably set you back near 10 grand to shoot if that's what you're in to. We
stopped and took a couple of photos of it. It just sat there. We waved at it,
it just sat there. We tooted our horn at it, and it stood up but didn't move
at all. It was not bothered by humans at all in the slightest. We got some
rather nice photos of it, photos you'd struggle to get in real life, first
because such a stag in real life is once in a lifetime, and second, because
you wouldn't be able to get anywhere near a stag standing in an open field
with no cover.

If I was in a mind for poaching, it would've been the easiest trophy ever.
Without hunting pressure, animals get amazingly placid.

Another thing to note about wild animals (or animals in general), is that they
tend to spend most of their day doing boring things, they usually just sit
down and don't do anything.

~~~
fapjacks
Actual hunting is phenomenally difficult. My dad does "spot and stalk"
bowhunting, which is what non-hunters think people mean when they say
"hunting". Hunters always think my dad is kidding when he says he hunts that
way, because the vast majority of "hunters" are using man-hunting rifles with
excellent optics from quite a distance, or even paying a lot of money to sit
in a tree-stand with feeders right underneath them, so they can shoot the
(mostly domesticated) animal as it comes to feed. When people have that kind
of "hunting" available, it makes sense that they'd think someone like my dad
is crazy.

~~~
DamnYuppie
One thing to really point out for those who don't hunt is the style of hunting
you indicated is only available in a few states. In Texas you can hunt over a
feeder, I am not sure of any other states where it is legal. In many other
eastern states there is limited public land so a lot of large game, aka deer,
hunting is done via stands with bows. This allows people to hunt in smaller
areas near more urban centers.

Out west (CO,UT,NM,NV,WY,MT,ID) things are different. There is a lot of public
land so there is definitely a lot more long range hunting. Also the private
land out west tends to be much larger than the private land tracks out east.
So you will see a lot of pay to play hunting ranches.

------
moron4hire
When has professional photography ever represented itself as a strictly
truthful, unambiguous, and simply decipherable medium?

What I mean is, who told you all those photos were of wild animals in the
wild? Who doesn't know that models in the cover of Vogue are covered in
makeup? Is the dress blue or gold?

But unfortunately there is a cross-cutting of two unrelated problems here: the
populist view that art should be nothing but a strict representation of the
real world, coupled with the elitist view that photography is not real art.

Journalists choose words and cherry pick quotes to create an impression they
want. Painters have literally zero external constraints. But involve a
mechanical contraption literally designed to bend light and suddenly we ask
people to not bend light.

~~~
iamatworknow
This sort of thing comes up all the time in the photography communities I
follow. In particular, the idea of post processing. There are some purists who
think that no photo should be Photoshopped because there's some sort of loss
of integrity there. You didn't capture the moment, you _made_ the moment.

But post processing has existed long before Photoshop. People who shot film
did (and still do) alter their developer times, or do stand development over
agitation, or dodge or burn prints. And every modern digital camera does some
post processing in camera as well. White balance, color correction, or even
more fancy stuff like film emulation modes...those are all forms of post
processing.

I know a lot of photography contests require the submission of an unedited raw
file in order to enter, but that's not what people want to see in the end.
They want the Photoshop look without going into Photoshop, and that's very,
very rare to pull off. So where do you draw the line?

~~~
paulmd
Photojournalism is a fraudulent concept from the beginning. There is no
platonically neutral way to present a scene, you are inherently making
editorial decisions even before you snap the picture, with your choice of
positioning/framing/focal length.

Which of these is the "neutral" way to portray this shot? And says who?

[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/23/23/2CB1092D0000057...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/23/23/2CB1092D00000578-3246791-image-a-2_1443046088866.jpg)

[http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/24/23/2CB066F80000057...](http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2015/09/24/23/2CB066F800000578-3248214-image-a-2_1443132727378.jpg)

From there it's all a matter of degrees. Pulling a distracting highlight,
desaturating a distracting visual element, cloning something out, it's all on
a spectrum. But you could do the same manipulations by changing your
positioning and perspective a little bit when you take the shot.

Even stuff like white balance and color correction is frowned on, which is
incredibly stupid when using a filter or changing your film stock would have
the exact same effect. And the fact that digital is inherently a processed
format in itself - you're not seeing color, you're seeing black and white run
through a Bayer filter and interpreted back to a color image.

Basically, photojournalism is a bunch of people jerking themselves off and
handing out awards for getting "the perfect shot" in-camera.

~~~
vr46
This is wrong in about fifty different ways right from the first paragraph.
Photojournalism has _impartiality_ at its core, not 'neutrality'. Everyone has
biases, nobody can be neutral. But you can certainly be impartial.

Framing, composition are also aesthetic decisions, not just political ones,
and those decisions are made both by the photographer at shooting time and
picture editors at publishing time. The point is to draw the reader into the
story.

Making corrections and alterations to digital images is not 'stupid', it is a
development that has occurred over time in response to accusations and
revelations of genuine manipulations and fakery. With film, large-scale
changes were very hard and almost impossible to do with the original negative
or positive, so elaborate printing techniques were considered to be almost
entirely aesthetic and artistic. With the advent and ascent of digital
darkrooms, manipulation and alteration is easier and harder to catch,
therefore the appropriate approach is to respect the original pixels and not
change any: the integrity of the picture can never be called into question.

This is a potted summary and there are certainly more nuances, complexities
and subtleties than I can relate here, I also have a Masters in
Photojournalism and do not appreciate the abusive tone bolted onto the
previous comment.

~~~
paulmd
> Photojournalism has impartiality at its core, not 'neutrality'.

These words are literally synonyms.

> Framing, composition are also aesthetic decisions, not just political ones,
> and those decisions are made both by the photographer at shooting time and
> picture editors at publishing time. The point is to draw the reader into the
> story.

Certainly, but the need for drama doesn't detract from the editorial aspects
_inherent_ to those artistic decisions.

> With film, large-scale changes were very hard and almost impossible to do
> with the original negative or positive, so elaborate printing techniques
> were considered to be almost entirely aesthetic and artistic.

No, for someone with a degree in photojournalism you're highly misinformed.
Basic darkroom work is trivial to accomplish (it's literally taught in Photo
101 courses) and was routine during the entirety of the film era. Up to and
including outright manipulation of photographs in many cases.

Famously, consider some of the "unpersons" removed from images of Stalin -
although I certainly agree this is the type of thing that should be avoided in
works of a documentary nature.

[https://userscontent2.emaze.com/images/ca4cecf5-8daf-49fa-93...](https://userscontent2.emaze.com/images/ca4cecf5-8daf-49fa-93dd-02cd2958d2af/906968fc0d73a207e520dfcc574df324.jpeg)

> With the advent and ascent of digital darkrooms, manipulation and alteration
> is easier and harder to catch, therefore the appropriate approach is to
> respect the original pixels and not change any: the integrity of the picture
> can never be called into question.

I don't see how that substantially addresses the problem. Retouching is not
inherently unethical, and individuals who engage in unethical behavior aren't
going to be slowed down by your code of conduct.

To wit: did your code of ethics keep the guy from being removed from that
image of Stalin?

> I also have a Masters in Photojournalism and do not appreciate the abusive
> tone bolted onto the previous comment.

Please don't descend to the level of tone argument. It's a logical fallacy and
not constructive at all.

------
tangue
There was a wonderful episode of the 99% invisible podcast on this subject,
while it focuses on sound it goes way deeper than this article

[http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/sounds-
natural/](http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/sounds-natural/)

~~~
personlurking
Not to mention this recent 6-min video, on sound & narrative

How Nature Documentaries Are Fake
[https://vimeo.com/214023666](https://vimeo.com/214023666)

~~~
TheGRS
That wasn't quite as mind blowing as I was expecting. I guess after working on
a lot of video projects I can sense when documentaries are taking a narrative
license or using music and sound effects to enhance the scene, so that sort of
thing isn't shocking to me. Planet Earth is still going out to remote
locations to get some pretty amazing shots, rather than doing the work on one
of these game farms or adding CGI. As long as they aren't interfering with
nature while they do the work I appreciate their effort.

------
whyenot
This is true of a lot of nature films as well. I got first hand experience of
this working as a field biologist in Panama. We had several well known film
crews come through where I worked. Trapped animals (temporarily captured for
research reasons, it would be highly unethical to trap animals just to film
them) were filmed in cages with natural looking backgrounds was common.
Several segments involving larger animals were filmed at a local zoo. Insects
were often "tethered." A very thin clear plastic thread was glued to their
bodies and attached to another surface so they could not fly again. One group
wanted to film a tree fall in the forest, so they cut down a tree after
attaching several cameras to it... It was an eye-opening experience for me.

------
icc97
Slightly related but very cool, there's a British photographer Tim Flach who
takes photos of animals in his studio [0], they are openly taken in a studio
and it takes nothing away from their beauty.

[0]: [http://timflach.com/work/more-than-
human/](http://timflach.com/work/more-than-human/)

------
porsupah
Ultimately, if you want to know whether a particular photographer's work is
genuinely from the wild, you need to check into their body of work. Ideally,
they'll be honest about the use of such animal parks - for the overwhelming
majority of cases, though, if they claim the subjects to be wild, they will
be.

That's not to say the photos won't have been processed, of course - that's
entirely up to individual taste, whether that's casting it to monochrome, or
boosting the contrast to bring out the skin texture of an elephant.

In photography circles, parks like those are promoted as a means for
enthusiasts to see species they'd otherwise have to travel great distances for
- rather like a cageless zoo. It's not something I've engaged in[1], but I can
understand the appeal from a hobbyist perspective; and understandably, if
you're looking for "wildlife" photography on demand, perhaps for an
advertising campaign, you're unlikely to commission someone to attempt to
obtain just the right photo out in the wild.

[1] My wildlife focus is primarily rabbits, eg "Momentary":

[https://www.flickr.com/photos/porsupah/9495186995/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/porsupah/9495186995/)

------
socrates1998
I don't really see the issue. It's not like wolves don't walk through snow in
packs. Or that mountain lions don't jump over rocks.

~~~
ahartman00
At a previous job, we talked a lot about managing the expectations of clients.
If you promise someone an operating system delivered in two weeks, with a
budget of $10k, they will be very upset when you don't deliver. It doesnt
matter that it was an unrealistic promise. This is why engineers should double
their estimates, and be proactive about communicating delays. People do not
like to be disappointed when their expectations are not met.

I think that's what is happening here. People are expecting wildlife photos to
be shot in the wild. A studio, or feeding the animals feels like a 'cheaper'
or fake product. So they are upset. It doesn't matter if the footage is
representative, or if the photos were of a better quality than what could be
obtained in nature. It doesn't matter if baiting the animals reduces the cost
of making the documentary, potentially increasing the amount of footage we can
view. Their expectations were not met.

I've said it before, and probably will have to say it again. We are not
logical creatures. We can expect people to behave logically, but we will be
disappointed. Then we get upset ;)

EDIT: not saying you were upset

EDIT 2: this is why people don't want to pay for things on the internet. Their
expectations have been set.

------
jameslk
Finally an article about hacking on Hacker News. It seems like a clever
business. We have Photoshop these days so it's hard to know whether anything
is real anymore. AI will only make that worse. But hey, at least they aren't
shooting to kill.

------
didibus
Do wild animals even exist in the wild anymore?

Edit: Wow, lots of down votes. I'm not being snarky. I genuinely ask. The term
"wild" seems to have undefined semantics. Would a reservation park count as
wild?

~~~
JohnJamesRambo
I get what you are getting at, but yes there are still massive amounts of
Earth that are incredibly wild.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File:World_population_density_1994_-_with_equator.png)

~~~
dbcurtis
Incredibly wild, yes. Sustainably wild.... I have my doubts. As the climate
changes, moisture and temperature norms in various habitats are going to
change. What we have are islands of wild habitat, and without connections the
flora and fauna will not be able to migrate as the climate norms migrate.

The absolute number of acres is not the only consideration. I am concerned
about the ability of Ponderosa Pine or cougars to migrate as necessary for
survival, to name a couple of species.

~~~
dbcurtis
OK, what's with the down-votes? Down vote isn't for "I disagree", actually
make a reasoned argument. Down vote isn't for "you don't share my politics".

FWIW, I spend a lot of time in the Sierra Nevada and the Sierra foothills. I
can see what is happening right before my eyes. I can see what the Ponderosa
Pine on my own property are doing in response to stress. I can see the
wildlife migrate through and can only imagine what happens to them as they try
to cross a bridge from one wild region to another. I am blessed to be a
steward of a parcel of wild land that can host mountain lion and other large
fauna. Join me if you want to make a difference.

We have islands of wild habitat. That is not an opinion, that is a fact.
Wildlife and especially wild plants have a difficult time migrating from one
wild island to another. Not opinion, that is an observable, measurable fact.

HN has been getting out of hand lately -- getting down voted for making
verifiable, factual observations is something that may be the accepted norm on
SlashDot, but has no place here.

~~~
maxerickson
I downvoted you for capitalizing the D in slashdot.

------
debacle
I'm a big fan of wildlife documentaries, and it's very clear that more recent
documentaries, either as a result of cost-cutting, trying to be more engaging
or what have you, are splicing footage of unrelated scenes (even with
completely different lighting and/or landscapes) to create a narrative of
something happening that is clearly not taking place.

It's not appealing. It's not exciting. It's farcical and insulting to a
certain degree.

~~~
YCode
It is a little off-putting, but I think it certainly has its place in
educating and entertaining people about wildlife.

BBC's Hidden Kingdoms comes to mind, where they make no illusions about the
fact that you are watching a film not a camera left out in the woods for ten
days.

In fact, after each episode they double down and re-use all their work by
showing you just how they got the shots and set up all the scenes.

That, and I think Planet Earth has occasionally been guilty of what you're
talking about, but personally I've never felt insulted, more like impressed
they managed to make a palatable narrative out of a bunch of wildlife scenes.

------
mikeleung
There is a great book about the subject of capturing wildlife images/movies by
Chris Palmer: [http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7482381-shooting-in-
the-w...](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7482381-shooting-in-the-wild)

------
larrik
I'm really not sure I'd prefer them pestering actual wild animals.

~~~
soundwave106
When you go to many of the parks with noted wildlife, you'll see a fair bit of
people traveling around with big telephoto lenses. They never need to pester
any wild animals at all.

The only time I've seen people pester wildlife in the national parks, was when
they wanted to get a close up using their limited-zoom-ability cell phone.
(Nothing happened in this case, others haven't been as lucky -- see pg. 293 of
this:
[https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/pdfs/mm6511.pdf](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/65/wr/pdfs/mm6511.pdf))

~~~
pyre

      Age   Sex     Park affiliation    Activity                                            Distance from bison Encounter type Injuries
      16    Female  Visitor             Photography; turned back to bison                   3–6 ft              Gored           Serious
      62    Male    Visitor             Photography                                         3–5 ft              Tossed          Serious
      19    Female  Employee            Walking; did not observe bison                      10 ft               Tossed          Minor
      68    Female  Visitor             Walking; observed bison and continued to walk past  NA                  Gored           Serious
      43    Female  Visitor             Photography; turned back to bison                   6 ft                Tossed          Minor

------
acomjean
This doesn't really surprise me. I take pictures as hobby and combining with
walking it turns into animal photography (well birds mostly). Its not common
to see animals like lynx, bear or wolves or moose (mammals basically). So if
you are trying to get a great photo of them to sell for stock, I can see this
is a huge time save.

For example the wolves I've photographed have been really really far away at
Yellowstone. I like the pictures, but they've not great.

Though this takes some of the excitement out of it I suppose.

------
grandalf
This guy has written extensively about the business:

[https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Wildlife-Filmmaker-
Challe...](https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Wildlife-Filmmaker-Challenges-
Industry/dp/1938954076)

------
orasis
I live near Yellowstone National Park and there are a ton of real wildlife
photographers in this area doing amazing work.

------
iRobbery
[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073024/BBCs-
little-...](http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073024/BBCs-little-white-
lie-Polar-bear-cubs-filmed-Frozen-Planet-zoo-Arctic.html)

------
5_minutes
So now we have fake news, and fake wildlife pictures.

------
losteverything
Good place to photo wolves in n nj

[http://lakotawolf.com](http://lakotawolf.com)

------
asamy45
So how does this belong to HN?

