A Lesson from the Book of Avatar

As this is a big block of text I have added some largely irrelevant (none HDR!!!) images to this post to jazz it up a little.

In all areas of life, be it politics, business, your personal life, or photography, it is advisable to stand back, look at what you are doing, look at what others are doing, regroup, and see if your own actions can be improved.

A case and point, shamelessly stolen from Stephen Fry and QI, is China and the Teacup. Because China invented china and the teacup so early in its history, they had no need other liquid-holding devices. It was not until Europeans arrived with glass that they had access to glass, and therefore telescopes, windows, and microscopes. If they had been able to compare their technologies with those of the Europeans earlier, they would almost certainly have utilised technologies such of glass and the course of human history would have been very different. The same is true of the Europeans; it took 400 years for gunpowder technology to filter through Asia and the Middle East before reaching Europe.

In a similar way photographers can learn from other arts and the way they use new methods and technology. Take for example the film world, and more specifically Avatar. Avatar has already snatched the crown of "highest grossing film of all time" from Titanic. As photographers it is useful to ask why Avatar is such a success and whether lessons can be learned from its success. To do this I simply popped onto the "critical response" section of Wikipedia's Avatar page.

Perhaps the most telling review quote is from Robert Ebert's Chicago Sun Times review of Avatar. Robert is quoted as saying "watching Avatar, I sort of felt the same as when I saw Star Wars in 1977. Like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, the film employs a 'new generation of special affects'." However, I think it takes more than a new brand of special effects to make a successful film; it is all in how the special effects are employed. Avatar was released simultaneously in 2D and 3D and although I saw it in 3D I am fairly sure it would still work as a film in 2D.

Without the effects, without the 3D and the razzmatazz, Avatar still works as a film. It still has a working plot, well developed characters, and moral lessons. These work so well and the 3D is so subtle and believable that while watching it I often forgot I was watching a 3D film. I am sure some of the 3D effects will look dated and cheesy in five years time but I am confident that it will be remembered as not only a technologically groundbreaking film but as a great film in its own right. In short, the makers of Avatar did not produce a film in 3D simply because the technology was available, they produced a great film where the technology was the icing on the cake.

How then does this relate to photography? The world of photographic technology is rapidly advancing. The hardware and software wizards keep coming out with new advances such as high dynamic range (HDR), an editing technique that allows photographers to merge together many different exposures of a high-contrast scene to produce an image where the tones are correct throughout the image.

Many HDR photographs seem to me to be taken because the photographer could not work out a way to record a beautiful scene in any other way. One of the first lessons I learned when trying landscape photography for the first time is that there is a big difference between a beautiful scene and a photogenic scene. Luckily for the millions arriving at the grand canyon every year, these two categories overlap; however, often they do not. By using HDR to try and make a beautiful scene photogenic the result is often an unbelievable post-apocalyptic cartoony feast of colours and tones that detracts from the scene itself. Perhaps this is still art but it is not photography.

I have nothing against HDR itself, just the way it is usually used. If used subtly such that it is not immediately obvious that it has even be used, HDR has the potential to be like Avatar's 3D effects; subtle enough such that it is not immediately obvious but pronounced enough to give high-contrast photographs of photogenic scenes a little kick. HDR can be used to make a photograph that tells 1000 words tell just a few more.

With this in mind, when the next big technological advance hits the shelves I hope photographers will ask how the technology can improve their photographs and not delve too deeply into the technological geekery involved to find out what is feasible, regardless of whether it improves the message of their photographs.

A Statement at Last

A few minutes ago my phone rang, suddenly reminding me that there are other things in the world than than the code for my upcoming website. On the other end of the phone was Sam Waldron, rousing me further from my trance-like state of geekery to inform me that Jose Luis Rodrigez has been stripped of the title of BBC wildlife photographer of the year.

A statement on the competition's website states that "it was likely that the wolf featured in the image was an animal model that can be hired for photographic purposes and, as a result, the image had been entered in breach of rule 10 of the 2009 Competition."

The rule in question stated that images taken of captive animals must be declared as such, and that preference would be given to images of wild animals by judges.

These allegations are denied by the photographer, but as the rules equally clearly state "the decision of the judges is final." As such Rodriguez has been stripped of his title, and the £10,000 that would shortly have been headed in his way. Rodriguez will find little comfort in the fact that he is being allowed to keep the £500 he received as a category winner in place of any royalty payments the image has earned the competition thus far.

To me it is completely appalling that someone could enter a competition with an image that does not comply with the rules. Not only this but after winning Rodriguez simply lied about the methodology behind his photograph at events including WildPhotos.

I should imagine that for all those who entered the competition in 2009 the experience has now been severely tainted. I have had many conversations about past winners of the competition where I have fondly remembered "that backlit shot of the polar bear" or "the shot of the starling flock and sparrow hawk". The public will now not remember 2009 fondly as "the year with the jumping wolf shot" but instead as "the year with that fake wolf shot".

Not only this but it is the first year ever where no winner has been declared. The judges rightly decided that they could not fairly award the title to another photographer as the competition are judged blind and after the awards ceremony this would not be possible. Those photographers closest to receiving the reward will undoubtedly feel cheated.

Within an hour of an announcement the news is already being greeted as wildlife photography's biggest ever scandal, taking the crown from the 2003 revelations that photographs in the National Geographic of a kingfisher fishing for mayflies were of a stuffed museum specimen.

As well as being scandalous, to me Rodriguez's actions are tantamount to fraud. This was an attempt to dishonestly receive a converted title as well as £10,000. I believe this to be criminal as well as dishonest.

Scandals such as these unfairly damage the reputation of photographers worldwide. I hope we will be able to move on from this and continue to focus on the undeniably worthwhile conservation causes wildlife photographers throughout the world continue to attempt to highlight and continue to appreciate their art. Just because one photographer was dishonest does not mean all are and does not in any way detract from the beliefs, honesty, or skill of other photographers.

Tree Rats and the White Stuff

I know I have slightly missed the boat on this one, but seeing as every newspaper, tv channel, and casual conversation last week was jam packed with facts figures and images about this winter's record breaking "big freeze" I thought I should publish at least one article mentioning it. I will however try and make it a little more thoughtful than a generic article with the format "ooh! snow! *insert happy childish or cynical adult comments*"

The benefits of a local patch can never be overstated enough. Every wildlife photographer dreams of the big trips to Yellowstone, the Okavango Delta, or the snow monkeys of Japan. Even days out in places such as Wales seem more appealing than another trip to a well known place. In reality dedicated photographers grab most of their "keepers" near their homes in patches they know well.

During my undergraduate degree in Oxford my local patch because Port Meadow; the largest open meadow in England bisected, and sometimes flooded, by the Thames.

During the winter the flood plains were a mecca for wildfowl including hundreds of geese and one year around 200 golden plover (sorry for adding yet another silhouette to my blog!)

At my home in Worcester, my bird-feeder-filled garden is my local patch. One group of visitors to the garden, much to my parents annoyance, is our local grey squirrel population. In the past I have had grabbed some shots of them in our plum trees, despite the fact they are a little more skittish than the average garden squirrel as my parents regularly chase them with shouts of "bloody tree rats".

This winter I finally had the chance to photograph them in the snow, resulting in an image with an almost monochrome palette. I always find simple palettes help reduce the complexity of images making them more effective, especially when they are combined with narrow depths of field such as those produced with the 300mm F2.8 lens I currently have on loan from Nottingham University's biological photography department.

I hope you will agree that the moral of the story is not to neglect your local wildlife. Just because it is everyday does not mean it is uninteresting, even if it is a nasty foreign invader! This term my aim in Nottingham is to photograph the Foxes and Badgers that seem to be only too keen to leave their deposits in my garden, I shall keep you posted.

Is Wildlife Photography Art?

In an earlier post I mentioned that I think wildlife photography is an art. I have decided that the best way to illustrate why is to use a specific photograph as an example.

http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/prevPhoto.do?photo=2451&year=2008&category=55

This photograph won the BBC Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year overall competition in 2008 and something about the image just strikes me.

There are a million and one internet articles about successful composition from the rule of thirds, to using leading lines. All of this boils down to controlling the way the eye moves through the photograph. However, this simply tells you how to make a pretty photograph, not a work of art.

When I look at this photograph I can feel my eyes being moved around the photograph but it is not simply this that makes it art, but to explain why it is I need to explain how my eyes move.

The first thing I see is the chase scene in the middle of the image. By being in the middle of the photograph this breaks the most often cited compositional rule; "do not put the subject in the center of the frame". Luckily, in this case the eye does not dwell but is first drawn to the almost silhouetted line of Oryx in the foreground, before being drawn back to the chase by the gaze of the Oryx. Lastly, I pick up the almost hidden line of Oryx in the background, again looking at the chase.

Even though the Oryx are looking at the lion because herbivores need to keep track of predators, to me their gaze and positioning conjures the image of a Roman amphitheater, where the Oryx are the fascinated spectators.

To me nature is a fascinating but deadly spectacle, one that we can all enjoy, sometimes with morbid fascination, but one in which we are all intrinsically involved.

This is what art is to me. A photograph, poem, or painting, a song, book, or rock drawing is art if it says something about the world outside its form to the reader.

Every single nature photograph does this to me. Nature photographs remind me that the repetition of the simple process of evolution has produced a completely interrelated and completely ecologically interdependent web of life on a planet sculpted by the simple laws of physics.

This to me is completely inspiring. This to me is art.