An impassionate string of passionate adjectives

It was cold. Very cold. Freezing. Bone-chilling. Or hot. Scaldingly so. Perhaps. It depends on the scene. Sometimes it is wet; never merely damp. A downpour will do. Or a torrent. Yes a torrent. And an severe one at that. Many inches in an hour. The most since records began.

It was more than I ever imagined, yet the image was in my mind from the start. It was desolate. Isolated. Barren and overwhelming. But serene, obviously. Quiet enough to make me pause, despite my deep personal suffering and the irresistible photographic potential, to feel at one with nature. Small. But passionate to articulate big things. An ardent conservationist irrespective of, but reinforced by, feelings experienced in the moment.

A cliché.

Some say the strongest photographs need not be accompanied by words. I disagree, words channel emotion and can make messages more pungent, but why do we always chose the same few? An impassionate string of the most passionate adjectives? Or an overly-dramatic behind-the-scenes expose of a walk in the park?

The Metro displays more inspiring vistas than my grandest photographs and the BBC NHU makes my most-arduous exploits look like walks in the park. Few lives are altered by the press of a shutter, so why pretend otherwise? If we are desensitised to sensationalism why not try something else?

I am far from the first to do this, and it is not the only other option, but with a little research I have found something much more penetrating than drama: facts that make you think.

Donna Nook, Again

If any of you who followed my link to Chris Weston's website following my last post on Donna Nook, you may be wondering why I am so concerned. Chris's website contains a news article, dated November 2010, in rebuke to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust's concerns that photographers harm seals' welfare.

To those without biological or statistical training, Chris' article probably has the look of an authoritative piece. Let me assure you that this is not the case. As the old saying goes, there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. Chris' article contains all three.

Chris starts his argument by stating that official figures show that seal colonies around the UK are declining. Chris does not reference this statement. The latest figures on Grey Seal numbers in the UK come from the the Sea Mammals Research Unit at St Andrews University. Their Special Committee on Seals report (2010) clearly states that Grey Seal numbers are increasing:

Populations in Canada, USA, and the Baltic are increasing.

The report also states, equally clearly, that this is a trend that has continued unabated since around 1960 (although there is evidence that growth is leveling off). Total UK Grey Seal pup production increased by 1.9% between 2008 and 2009, the very period Chris claims exhibited a decline.

Chris proceeds by using flawed statistics on his fabricated data. Paul Harcourt Davies has today pointed out in a comment on Niall Benvie's excellent post on the subject, that what follows is a logical fallacy:

In contrast to this declining trend ... Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust has recorded an increase in seal numbers at Donna Nook each year since 2007, a period that coincides with a large increase in photographic recreation at Donna Nook. Statistically, therefore, one could draw the conclusion that the reported increase in seal numbers is a direct consequence of the increase in photographers - post hoc ergo proctor hoc.

This is a widely known fallacy; namely,  if a follows b, a must have caused b. This is obviously rubbish: the sun did not rise today because I stubbed my toe yesterday.

Chris continues by reeling off a list of evidence from "studies", few of which are relevant and none of which are cited. While writing my article, I trawled the scientific literature for any studies relating to human behaviour and seal mortality. My searches were fruitless and the Sea Mammals Research Unit confirmed such studies do not exist.

This shows Chris Weston is willing to fabricate evidence and misuse statistics at the expense of seal welfare for nothing more than his own self-interest and commercial gain. Equally, he is willing to mislead others, spreading lies which probably do as much harm as Chris' own actions. This is, as Niall Benvie's post states, "a bad advert for the profession and isn't going to do anything to allay the suspicions of scientists who have never had a lot of time for photographers".

It will not surprise you to learn that neither Chris Weston nor Photographers on Safari have responded to my enquiries.

2011/01/11 - Edit:

Chris Weston no longer offers workshops to Donna Nook in response to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust's statement. Chris has responded to the statement and this article here:

http://imagesfromtheedge.com/blog/?p=8704#comments

Golden outlines

While I await a response from the two photographers leading photography tours to Donna Nook (see my previous post), I thought I would pass the time by explaining a new technique I have been experimenting with.

There are many ways to reduce a scene to its most simplistic elements. Silhouetting the subject is one, throwing the foreground or background out of focus is another. A subtler way is to use the low light of sunrise or sunset to outline the subject. This is not easy. The subject has to be against a dark background, the photographer must be at exactly the correct angle, and they must markedly underexpose the image depending upon the scene. Even if all of this is done correctly, the resulting images often require a huge amount of post-processing before they look as clean as the image above.

I have been working on a technique to artificially reproduce this affect using off-camera flash. I am sure I am not the first to try this and my experiments with the technique are still in their infancy, but I have already produced a few natural-looking images.

The basic technique is as follows:

1. Find a subject with strong composition. No matter of good light will make a poor composition shine.
2. Meter the scene to produce an almost-black image.
3. Place an off-camera flashgun just out of shot pointing at both the camera and the subject.
4. Cover the flash with a yellow filter. I use an filter designed for black and white photography but any yellow, transparent material should do (I have heard great things about Roses chocolate wrappers!)
5. Increase the flash power to taste. Every scene requires a different amount of flash. Experiment with different powers to produce the desired affect.
6. The more you point the flash at the camera, the more glare you will get. This is not necessarily a bad thing as it can still look quite natural.

This can produce very natural-looking images and has many advantages over using natural light: flash is much more predictable than sunlight and this technique can be done at any time of day, to name but two. The one problem I am having so far is that my images look a little too yellow. I have to correct this in photoshop by adding a little red, producing a more-orange image. This is still much less post-processing than usually required when using natural light. The question to ask is this:

Do you prefer your images to look almost right in-camera but use artificial light or do you prefer them to use natural light but need substantial editing?

If you prefer the latter, ignore this post; if you prefer the former, give it a go. Let me know how it goes!

Photography Kills Seals at Donna Nook. Fact.

This is is not scientifically proven, but it is as close as we can get:

Photographers inadvertently kill seals at Donna Nook.

Last year, I published an article in Outdoor Photography magazine in response to several visits to Donna Nook. Each visit left me more disillusioned than the last until the picture in my mind was not one of an idyllic seal colony but one of hundreds of photographers scrambling over each other and, almost, their subjects to get the shot. I witnessed very little field craft and even less regard for seal welfare. Even the most casual observer could have seen that the status quo was damaging to the seals. I decided to investigate.

I spoke to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust's wardens, seal scientists, experienced wildlife photographers, and even the RAF to determine whether photographers were having an observable effect upon seal survival rates. The answer was a definitive "probably". Seal pup mortality rates had steadily climbed for four years, strongly correlating with photographer numbers. The scientists even had a convincing explanation of why; however, there was no proof other factors were not involved.

The result of my research was this article in Outdoor Photography, strongly urging photographers to stay away:

Fast-forward a year and there are more facts on the table. Throughout last year's pupping season, the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust adopted a strong new stance to deal with photographers. Where they previously suggested photographers stayed away, they now strongly requested they do so. Their appeal even made the BBC News. Visitor numbers dropped by 80% from 1500 to just 314, all but two of whom were photographers.

The result surprised even me. An 80% drop in photographer numbers resulted in a 50% drop in seal pup mortality - a huge drop. Fewer seal pups died than they had in seven years. The wardens are not aware of any other change that could have caused this, especially considering it happened despite one of the coldest winters on record hitting hardest exactly when seals are at their most vulnerable. It is not a statistically significant, repeatable scientific experiment, but it is as close as we will ever get.

This is undoubtedly a good news story - fewer seals are dying - but it does raise a few questions. How many other sites are similarly affected by photographers? Will this happen at other pupping grounds in the future? Who are the 312 photographers who ignored the Trust's plea? Most, the trust says, were either foreign photographers or photography workshop members. Surely workshop leaders should lead by example and cancel their tours, especially since they have mostly been contacted by the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust.

Not all sites are as cared for as Donna Nook is by the Trust. We can only hope Donna Nook was an isolated case but something tells me it is not. As wildlife photographers, even self-proclaimed conservation photographers, we must be responsible for our own actions and not be afraid to speak out about others'. We owe it to ourselves, our images, and our subjects: without them, we would be nothing.

In that spirit, here are the names of the main Donna Nook photography workshop leaders I know of:

• Photographers on Safari's John Wright
• Chris Weston

I have emailed all three photographers and, if they respond, will post their replies on this blog.

Lastly, it goes without saying, I urge you, I plead with you, not to visit Donna Nook this year.

NB. This article refers only to Donna Nook's beach colony. Human activity (including photography) has no affect upon seals at the dunes colony. The dunes colony is a fabulous spectacle and one that provides huge scope for photography. I would not hesitate to recommend anyone visits - just avoid weekends!

Exhibition!

I am proud to announce that my images will be part of a new exhibition at the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick!

The exhibition starts tomorrow (Monday the 28th of February) and will go on for one month.

This will be Exposing The Wild's third exhibition, following our two in Preston and Abby St. Bathans last summer, and will include many of the same images. However, for those of you who attended either of these previous events, there will be new images for you to see as Samuel Waldron has been adding to our Scottish Project collection.

I look forward to hearing what you think.

Madagascar

From nose to tail, Brookesia minima stands less than 2cm long. Many creatures are smaller, countless insects and other invertebrates, but B. minima is a fully fledged reptile.

Probably the world's smallest chameleon - undiscovered species may be smaller - the dwarf chameleon's insignificant frame hides a pair of lungs, a brain, and a tiny heart. They are miniature ambush predators, slowly stalking through their monopoly-board sized leaf-litter territories, changing colour as they go. When prey is sighted, usually a fruit fly, B. minima angles both its independantly-controlled eyes forward, quickly judging distance. Despite their famed reflexes, few fruit flies can outmaneuver a B. minima's tongue, which grabs the fly before retracting it into its mouth, where it is greeted by a row of tiny teeth.

Brookesia minima is just one of the wonders of Madagascar's forests. Isolated since the time of the dinosaurs, Madagascar has a unique flora and fauna. Over 90% of its known species are found nowhere else. This includes the lemurs, a group of around one hundred primate species, most of which have been discovered in the last 20 years. Madagascar's lemurs are preyed upon by the fossa, an enigmatic if ugly relative of the weasel.

In Madagascar, geckos impersonate bark, insects impersonate lichen, and chameleons impersonate their surroundings. Aye-ayes fulfill the roll of woodpeckers, rodents fulfill the roll of rabbits, and tenrecs fulfill the roll of just about everything else. Malagasy evolution has ripped the rulebook in two, resulting in primevally odd creatures whose strangeness is only enhanced by Madagascar's unearthly landscapes.

A new BBC wildlife documentary series, Madagascar, is debuting tonight on BBC Two tonight at 8pm. As with all flagship BBC nature documentaries, the series will doubtless be cinematographically flawless, tell the island's story fluently, and leave the viewer awed.

Madagascar, though, is a conservationists worst nightmare. I was lucky enough to visit the Indian Ocean nation in 2008 and certainly left with a feeling of awe but this was tainted by another emotion: horror. Madagascar's conservation situation is truly dire.

A transport map of Madagascar would look like a wheel. The major towns and tourist sights are all dotted around the country's edge except for the capitol, Antananarivo (I did not lean on my keyboard there, that is really how it is spelled). To reach the edge, travelers must either negotiate miles of potholed dirt track or fly. Each flight, regardless of the destination, takes roughly an hour and the view from the window is as follows:

1) Five minutes of Antananarivo suburbs.
2) Fifty minutes of scorched red soil.
3) Five minutes of pristine forest.

All of Madagascar was once forested but its center is now as barren and red as Australia's great central desert. Slash and Burn agriculture has stripped the land bare, leaving only the native's sacred Baobab trees. The Baobabs of Baobab Avenue, a famed tourist beauty spot, only stand alone because the rest of the forest was felled for rice paddies. A previous BBC Documentary, Planet Earth no less, made no mention of this in a memorable sequence where a balloon-mounted camera drifted between the Baobabs.

Deforestation leaves nothing to stabilise the dry soil. Five years on, the land is either covered by a rampant non-native grass species or gone. Erosion in Madagascar is rapid and catastrophic; canyons often open within days. Red tsingy, a geological feature proudly displayed to tourists, may look as old as time but is in fact an erosional feature present only due to recent deforestation.

Madagascar's wildlife faces is facing a point of no return. It needs more than just another blue-chip documentary  highlighting its unique flora and fauna, something to show generations when it is gone. It needs a documentary that highlights the peril the country's wildlife faces, shows why it is worth saving, and can be used as a weapon to help halt biodiversity loss.

I will be watching tonight hoping that the BBC have produced such a weapon and not simply dismissed the conservationists message as something that diminishes valuable ratings.

There is Grandure in this view of life

A common claim by wildlife filmmakers and photographers is that their work forwards public awareness of conservation by sharing the artist's view of the natural world, but what view is it that they are actually forwarding?

Over the past 150 years, scientists have revolutionised our view of the natural world. Where before it was God's flight of fancy, Adam and Eve's playground, now it is a cold and unfeeling place. Brothers fight brothers, all creatures are hungry, and the majority die childless, afraid, and in pain in the jaws of a predator.

Our view of individual species has changed too. Our medieval ancestors readily attributed human traits and supernatural powers to the creatures around them. Each species reflected an aspect of the divine mind and was a part of God's greater purpose: to help us achieve salvation through studying his creation.

Each species was an allegory; a Hoopoe cares for its elders to show us to do the same, an owl is a dirty bird to show us what happens when we shun the light of Christ, and a virgin oyster produces pearls to show that virgin births are possible. Gods work was written throughout creation in the very human language of anthropomorphism.

Now scientists look to other species for lessons not of God but evolution. Every adaptation in every species has a history that tells us something about evolutionary processes; the origin of species. Species are not allegories but evolution's best attempt of adapting their forebears for their environment and it is written all over them.

Does this fit with how the media portrays organisms? It depends upon the species. Oddly, the more endangered a species the more we seem to see it in evolutionary terms. A Polar Bear is an unfortunate creature perfectly adapted for a rapidly disappearing environment; so are the Ethiopian Wolf and Orangutan. Conversely, the the Puffin is still a comical man in a suit while the Robin is the gardener's best friend.

In reality, any individual Puffin or Robin has to fight just as hard to survive and reproduce as any Polar Bear: Puffins must run a daily gauntlet of predatory seagulls when returning to their burrow to feed their chicks while Robins frequently kill each other in territorial disputes. Their worlds are no less brutal either: arctic gales batter Puffins cliff-top homes while harsh frosts freeze Robins to death as they sleep.

Is the reason this view is not always shown because it is not media friendly? I do not think so. The piece of television I believe most successfully portrayed every species' struggle in a harsh environment is the BBC's Planet Earth. While sometimes shocking and moving, the series contained moments of great beauty made even more so by the knowledge of their unlikely context and the unfeeling forces that created them. The series is an international commercial and critical success, having been sold to 130 countries.

Did Planet Earth's view of the world further a conservation agenda? Undoubtedly: humans love nothing more than unlikely beauty and conserve nothing more fervently than that which they love. Furthermore, the series contained just enough anthropomorphism to help the audience emphasise with its characters.

I am as guilty as anyone, many of my images seek to portray an ideal version of my subjects, but perhaps photographers and filmmakers should move with scientists and portray our world less as a twee, idyllic paradise and more as the interconnected, cutthroat, and yet still beautiful world it is. As Darwin said, "there is grandeur in this view of life".

Does a picture say the right thousand words?

Time to spout an old cliché. If you have heard it once you have heard it a thousand times. An image really does say a thousand words.

There is though a problem with this cliché. If I were to show the image above - which shows the River Severn on its way to freezing in central Worcester for the first time in at least 30 years - to a group of people it would undoubtedly say different things to each of them.

Imagine the group contained Jill, the archetypal climate change activist, and Jeremy, a supercar-driving climate change skeptic. (Jeremy's personality and name, you understand, lends nothing to any famous climate change skeptics you may be thinking of)

Jill, through daisy-woven dreadlocks and a haze of scented candle smoke, might stare tearfully at the image before reaching to her guitar and improvising a ditty lamenting the rarity of true winters in our warming world.

Jeremy, meanwhile, would scoff. Ice, he might add, boastfully, as if stumbling upon a profound yet original thought, only forms when it is cold! When Peter took this image it was minus ten every night for a week! How can the world be warming, ridiculous?!?

Our prejudices inform how we interpret images. A two million year old South African hominid would look at an image of an eagle with fear. Eagles, after all, preyed upon their children.

If we fast forward to the 13th Century, the eagle has become the king of birds, fear has been transformed to reverence. Eagles are able to rejuvenate themselves by flying directly into the sun before rising, phoenix-like, from the flames.

Now eagles are pests or conservation symbols, a product of evolution or one of god's mightiest creations. Viewpoint is everything.

This eagle though is not wild, and neither was the one in the previous photograph. He is owned and flown daily by a man who cares deeply for it. Suddenly, just with a few words, the eagle has become a beloved pet or a cruelly-held captive animal.

Whereas, though, most dog walkers simply walk, feed, care for, and love their pets, this eagle has a further purpose. The owner hunts with the eagle, flying it at wild hares. Sometimes it kills, sometimes it does not.

Now, to some people, the eagle is the sinister tool of a bloodsport; to others it is a rare opportunity to view a predator in action at close quarters; to yet more it is a pest control agent. Again, this has changed all with the application of just a few more words.

Where then does this leave conservation photography and natural history film-making if people tend to see their own prejudices in images and film? How do we know if the thousand words an image says are the ones we mean it to? Are conservation and educational images redundant, powerless to change people's perceptions?

Not at all, far from it. A carefully chosen image, a skillfully applied sentence, or (on film) a well chosen soundtrack, can bypass prejudice and bring out new emotions, making people laugh and cry on cue, sharing the emotions of the artist.

The challenge is to understand the perceptions of others and to chose those images, words, and sounds that affect your target audience in the same way they affect you, getting your message across as strongly as possible. The only real way to test this though is to show someone the final product and to ask them to explain, in a thousand words, what it means to them.

Note: The proof is in the pudding. Straight after this post I logged onto facebook, finding a link to this article showing that The Cove, a powerful conservation film, is starting to influence a modest but growing protest movement in Japan:

http://savejapandolphins.org/blog/post/some-good-news-a-demonstration-by-japanese-in-taiji-against-the-dolphin-sla

Climbing Mount Improbable

The title of this blog post comes a 1996 Richard Dawkins popular science book and is, like many of his titles, an extended metaphor whose theme is extended throughout the book.

Think of Dawkins what you will but he is undoubtedly a master of metaphor and climbing mount improbable is one of his best. It counters the well known creationist metaphor of Paley's watch. Namely, that life, much like an intricate pocket watch, is too complex to have come about by chance. Life, like the watch, Paley argued, necessitates a designer.

One metaphor for evolution is of an N-dimensional adaptive landscape. Any mutation moves a species through the landscape. If a mutation improves a individuals' competitive ability it will rise higher. If it decreases its competitive ability, it will fall lower. Over time, those individuals 'higher' up the landscape and therefore better adapted are favoured by evolution - perhaps imagine a flood drowning those lower down - until, millions of years later, every surviving species towers over the landscape upon its own mount improbable.

Paley viewed the ascent of mount improbable as impossible without the conscious hand of a designer, God, placing each species on the top. Evolution ignores the height and cliffs of mount improbable, simply, slowly, and blindly climbing around the back.

Evolution does not have a goal - it is a mindless algorithm favouring better adapted individuals - but I do. Sometimes, becoming a wildlife photographer seems as remote a possibility as climbing my own mount improbable. My adaptive landscape contains peaks dominated by the giants of the business and each seems very remote.

My challenge, like anyone else's, is to doggedly fight my way around the landscape rejecting less successful ventures and accepting more profitable ones. It is not to waste time finding a non-existent magic bullet ride to the top nor to follow someone successful else up their peak. Hopefully, in this way, I will eventually find myself blinking in the light on a deserted peak with a view to die for.

Oh and, in case you had not guessed, one of my new years resolutions is to blog more frequently.