10 ms·

There’s a good chance wildlife photos weren’t shot in the wild

196 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

moron4hire 9y ago
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.
- vijayr 9y ago
  Apples to Oranges comparison. If something says "wildlife (nature etc) photography" (vs "my pet dog's photos") then it is natural to assume it wasn't staged, right? Technically the title might not be a lie (maybe they shot it in one of these parks) but at minimum it is misleading. But Vogue probably doesn't claim "naturally beautiful" or whatever (not a Vogue reader, just guessing). Understand the sentiment though.
  - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
    It might not be Vogue, but women's magazines often present folks as natural beauty. It is obvious (to me) that it means they have light makeup and/or the photo has been touched up, but the text will rave about how beautiful someone is without makeup. It gets worse with tabloids, who like to say someone is beautiful/ugly when they wake up. Diet and exercise can be the same - sure they look good and have a good diet and workout routine. They also have personal chefs preparing their meals, a personal trainer, and sometimes are naturally thin even without those things. I'd really just like folks to be honest about this sort of thing. They could just say they got the picture at a nature park instead of acting like it was a lucky shot. It doesn't change the wonderfulness of the picture.
- ortuna 9y ago
  This type of article might be the step to demystifying photography. But the story I get told over and over again (not directly, but by exposure) is about the photographer that traveled miles and waited days to get that shot.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- iamatworknow 9y ago
  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?
  - Mendenhall 9y ago
    "Purist" photography is lot more impressive to me, if there is such a thing anymore, as you mentioned in camera effects etc. I enjoy a good photoshop job as well though. I think where it matters to me is when you are saying something is "authentic". Lets say someone is taking pictures of a beach for a resort advertisement. One could photoshop the sand to appear as some sort of rare pink color, but when you arrive that color will be nowhere to be found. Same thing if a news article has "beaches are more polluted than ever" and tint the beach to look green. That to me is akin to false advertisement. I also agree people like and want photoshopped images since almost all photos benefit from a little tweek to saturation and brightness. Just my 2 cents because I agree with all you said. Sidenote if someone says "wildlife photography" and its not in the wild, its not wildlife photography.
    - TheGRS 9y ago
      While I don't think he was airbrushing or anything, even Ansel Adams did quite a bit of work in post processing to achieve the effect he desired. All of that work has simply moved over to Photoshop where you can get the desired effect much more quickly than you could in a dark room.
    - 9y ago
- bdamm 9y ago
  > populist view that art should be nothing but a strict representation of the real world I had no idea.
tangue 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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.
  - kartan 9y ago
    Thank you for sharing the video. It is well explained, and well balanced. I know how edited are nature documentaries. But I like them anyway. As the video says that makes it more a story, that makes it more interesting. The pictures with captive animals are a different thing. As chaining a wolf so people can take nice pictures is cruel. To make animals suffer to take a nicer picture without any scientific value is immoral.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
didibus 9y ago
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?
- germinalphrase 9y ago
  It's clearly a semantic argument - but there is a segment of the environmental community (often called the 'bright greens') that take the stance that we've already so drastically and universally affected the natural world that we must look to technological and social change to maintain a prosperous ecological system. Which is to say, no - there is no "wild" anymore. It's basically Steward Brands "we are as gods and have to get good at it".
  - mjevans 9y ago
    We're at best demi-gods. Little squabbling toddlers that can't properly clean up their own messes. However yeah, we either have to get good "at it" or die off to let something else take our place (eventually).
- JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
  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:World_population_density_1994_-_with_equator.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File...
  - dbcurtis 9y ago
    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.
larrik 9y ago
I'm really not sure I'd prefer them pestering actual wild animals.
- DamnYuppie 9y ago
  Wild life photography done right requires that they not really be noticed by the animal. You would be amazed how hard it is to get close to a wild animal and no Yellowstone isn't really "wild".
- soundwave106 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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
  - prawn 9y ago
    In Yellowstone, you see loads of people with expensive scopes and lenses. Often, even with the power of a scope, they're seeing some of the shyer animals (wolf, for example) as little more than a blurred speck because they're so far away.
mikeleung 9y ago
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-wild http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7482381-shooting-in-the-w...
grecy 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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 9y ago
    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.
    - noja 9y ago
      They use giant movable chillers and lots of food.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      I think they spend months there. I would also be surprised if they cheated a little. When you have spent millions on a production you need results if you ever want to do it again.
      - markdown 9y ago
        Every Planet Earth episode has a mini-"making of" at the end of it which usually shows how shots were acquired.
acomjean 9y ago
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.
iRobbery 9y ago
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073024/BBCs-little-white-lie-Polar-bear-cubs-filmed-Frozen-Planet-zoo-Arctic.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2073024/BBCs-little-...
orasis 9y ago
I live near Yellowstone National Park and there are a ton of real wildlife photographers in this area doing amazing work.
socrates1998 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
- longerthoughts 9y ago
  I think you'll find that a lot of people who enjoy wildlife photography are also those who stand for the preservation of all things wild. If demand for wildlife photography creates a profitable market for raising animals in captivity, it's a bit of a contradiction. There are of course sanctuaries that responsibly protect wildlife, but profitability is likely to breed some not-so-responsible organizations as well. It's not like orcas don't swim and eat fish, and yet public opinion has turned against SeaWorld because of the circumstances that came with commercialization.
- Paul-ish 9y ago
  Agreed, and it sounds like the federal government is doing its job and monitoring this stuff to minimize abuse. Its not clear how harassing wildlife living on the edge of survival is better than caring for animals, and taking pictures in return.
porsupah 9y ago
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/
jameslk 9y ago
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.
icc97 9y ago
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/
grandalf 9y ago
This guy has written extensively about the business: https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Wildlife-Filmmaker-Challenges-Industry/dp/1938954076 https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Wildlife-Filmmaker-Challe...
5_minutes 9y ago
So now we have fake news, and fake wildlife pictures.
debacle 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
- macintux 9y ago
  > create a narrative of something happening that is clearly not taking place Sounds like a moon landing hoax "documentary" I unintentionally watched 15 years ago. They were very careful to not show the questions they asked the expert, so the supposed responses to very detailed (albeit bullshit) conspiracy evidence sounded cavalier and vague.
johansch 9y ago
It's fraud. If you don't see the issue, the problem might be with you.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  It's only fraud if it's misrepresentation.
- dang 9y ago
  That is unduly personal. We've asked you many times not to be uncivil on HN. This process may not seem finite but it is, and ends in getting banned if you don't fix this. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14248764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14248764 and marked it off-topic.
losteverything 9y ago
Good place to photo wolves in n nj http://lakotawolf.com http://lakotawolf.com
toomanybeersies 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
whyenot 9y ago
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.
asamy45 9y ago
So how does this belong to HN?

196 points by pmcpinto 9y ago

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.

vijayr 9y ago
Apples to Oranges comparison. If something says "wildlife (nature etc) photography" (vs "my pet dog's photos") then it is natural to assume it wasn't staged, right? Technically the title might not be a lie (maybe they shot it in one of these parks) but at minimum it is misleading. But Vogue probably doesn't claim "naturally beautiful" or whatever (not a Vogue reader, just guessing). Understand the sentiment though.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  It might not be Vogue, but women's magazines often present folks as natural beauty. It is obvious (to me) that it means they have light makeup and/or the photo has been touched up, but the text will rave about how beautiful someone is without makeup. It gets worse with tabloids, who like to say someone is beautiful/ugly when they wake up. Diet and exercise can be the same - sure they look good and have a good diet and workout routine. They also have personal chefs preparing their meals, a personal trainer, and sometimes are naturally thin even without those things. I'd really just like folks to be honest about this sort of thing. They could just say they got the picture at a nature park instead of acting like it was a lucky shot. It doesn't change the wonderfulness of the picture.
ortuna 9y ago
This type of article might be the step to demystifying photography. But the story I get told over and over again (not directly, but by exposure) is about the photographer that traveled miles and waited days to get that shot.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
iamatworknow 9y ago
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?
- Mendenhall 9y ago
  "Purist" photography is lot more impressive to me, if there is such a thing anymore, as you mentioned in camera effects etc. I enjoy a good photoshop job as well though. I think where it matters to me is when you are saying something is "authentic". Lets say someone is taking pictures of a beach for a resort advertisement. One could photoshop the sand to appear as some sort of rare pink color, but when you arrive that color will be nowhere to be found. Same thing if a news article has "beaches are more polluted than ever" and tint the beach to look green. That to me is akin to false advertisement. I also agree people like and want photoshopped images since almost all photos benefit from a little tweek to saturation and brightness. Just my 2 cents because I agree with all you said. Sidenote if someone says "wildlife photography" and its not in the wild, its not wildlife photography.
  - TheGRS 9y ago
    While I don't think he was airbrushing or anything, even Ansel Adams did quite a bit of work in post processing to achieve the effect he desired. All of that work has simply moved over to Photoshop where you can get the desired effect much more quickly than you could in a dark room.
  - 9y ago
bdamm 9y ago
> populist view that art should be nothing but a strict representation of the real world I had no idea.

tangue 9y ago

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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
- kartan 9y ago
  Thank you for sharing the video. It is well explained, and well balanced. I know how edited are nature documentaries. But I like them anyway. As the video says that makes it more a story, that makes it more interesting. The pictures with captive animals are a different thing. As chaining a wolf so people can take nice pictures is cruel. To make animals suffer to take a nicer picture without any scientific value is immoral.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

didibus 9y ago

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?

germinalphrase 9y ago
It's clearly a semantic argument - but there is a segment of the environmental community (often called the 'bright greens') that take the stance that we've already so drastically and universally affected the natural world that we must look to technological and social change to maintain a prosperous ecological system. Which is to say, no - there is no "wild" anymore. It's basically Steward Brands "we are as gods and have to get good at it".
- mjevans 9y ago
  We're at best demi-gods. Little squabbling toddlers that can't properly clean up their own messes. However yeah, we either have to get good "at it" or die off to let something else take our place (eventually).
JohnJamesRambo 9y ago
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:World_population_density_1994_-_with_equator.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_density#/media/File...
- dbcurtis 9y ago
  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.

larrik 9y ago

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

DamnYuppie 9y ago
Wild life photography done right requires that they not really be noticed by the animal. You would be amazed how hard it is to get close to a wild animal and no Yellowstone isn't really "wild".
soundwave106 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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
- prawn 9y ago
  In Yellowstone, you see loads of people with expensive scopes and lenses. Often, even with the power of a scope, they're seeing some of the shyer animals (wolf, for example) as little more than a blurred speck because they're so far away.

mikeleung 9y ago

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-wild http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7482381-shooting-in-the-w...

grecy 9y ago

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 9y ago
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 9y ago
  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.
  - noja 9y ago
    They use giant movable chillers and lots of food.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    I think they spend months there. I would also be surprised if they cheated a little. When you have spent millions on a production you need results if you ever want to do it again.
    - markdown 9y ago
      Every Planet Earth episode has a mini-"making of" at the end of it which usually shows how shots were acquired.

acomjean 9y ago

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.

iRobbery 9y ago

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

orasis 9y ago

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

socrates1998 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.
longerthoughts 9y ago
I think you'll find that a lot of people who enjoy wildlife photography are also those who stand for the preservation of all things wild. If demand for wildlife photography creates a profitable market for raising animals in captivity, it's a bit of a contradiction. There are of course sanctuaries that responsibly protect wildlife, but profitability is likely to breed some not-so-responsible organizations as well. It's not like orcas don't swim and eat fish, and yet public opinion has turned against SeaWorld because of the circumstances that came with commercialization.
Paul-ish 9y ago
Agreed, and it sounds like the federal government is doing its job and monitoring this stuff to minimize abuse. Its not clear how harassing wildlife living on the edge of survival is better than caring for animals, and taking pictures in return.

porsupah 9y ago

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/

jameslk 9y ago

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.

icc97 9y ago

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/

grandalf 9y ago

This guy has written extensively about the business: https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Wildlife-Filmmaker-Challenges-Industry/dp/1938954076 https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Wildlife-Filmmaker-Challe...

5_minutes 9y ago

So now we have fake news, and fake wildlife pictures.

debacle 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.
macintux 9y ago
> create a narrative of something happening that is clearly not taking place Sounds like a moon landing hoax "documentary" I unintentionally watched 15 years ago. They were very careful to not show the questions they asked the expert, so the supposed responses to very detailed (albeit bullshit) conspiracy evidence sounded cavalier and vague.

johansch 9y ago

It's fraud. If you don't see the issue, the problem might be with you.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
It's only fraud if it's misrepresentation.
dang 9y ago
That is unduly personal. We've asked you many times not to be uncivil on HN. This process may not seem finite but it is, and ends in getting banned if you don't fix this. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14248764 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14248764 and marked it off-topic.

losteverything 9y ago

Good place to photo wolves in n nj http://lakotawolf.com http://lakotawolf.com

toomanybeersies 9y ago

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 9y ago
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.

whyenot 9y ago

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.

asamy45 9y ago

So how does this belong to HN?