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

This green and pleasant land

Once again I have neglected my blog over the last few days. Is it because I have nothing to say? I am sure a few of you will confirm that is never likely to happy. Is it because I have taken any photos? Definitely not! So what is it?

Over the past few days I have been very busy planning two large projects. Planning what I hear you cry? Well let me just say that next year a) my feel will be blistering and b) you should be seeing a newly designed Exposing The Wild logo in a good few places. Cryptic!

Back to the here and now, or at least to days recently passed. Thursday morning I arose bright and early to climb Herefordshire Beacon (a.k.a. British Camp) in time for sunrise. British Camp is a Iron Age fort at the southern end of the Malvern Hills with views along the range to Worcestershire Beacon, across the Seven river valley, and across Herefordshire into Wales. Just a few meters from the summit is the setting a family of Rabbits has chosen to make its burrow.

Each morning, just after sunrise, they emerge to bathe in the warm morning light. There are very few things that would persuade me to be a rabbit, but the prospect of being greeted by that view each morning ranks highly on that list.

There is something special about old England with its quaint villages and rolling hills and to me very little is as English as the Malvern hills. Perhaps that is why when my Brother an old school friend and I set off for a short walk in the same hills two days later, we did not turn round until we were at the top of Worcestershire Beacon and our car was six miles behind us.

Finally, partially to give you a sneak preview of my next blog post, and partially so if I fail to post it you can chase me up, here is a picture from a session with David Fox and his magnificent Golden Eagle Star last week.

Deer, Seals, and Eagles

As it has been over a week since my last post, I am going to make this one a little longer than usual to make up for it.

I am also going include a few promises for future blog posts, partially so you know what is coming and partially because I will have to do it once I have promised. An extra little motivation for me!

This has been a busy week. Firstly, the first deadline of the MSc course is coming up next week; a research poster. I have had a week of frantic photography and design work trying to get it up to scratch.

Thankfully, I have got myself a seriously cool subject matter to keep things interesting. The Golden Eagle! "Now, where does one find a Golden Eagle in urban Nottinghamshire" I hear you ask?

Luckily, one of our course supervisors, David Fox, is a published world expert in falconry and has a pair of these magnificent birds and was perfectly happy for me to accompany him on one of his daily flights and take a few photographs. David is not only a lovely chap but a photographer himself so was perfectly willing to tailor the bird's flight patterns to suit my needs.

The eagle himself was also brilliant. I have never before photographed animals with such perfect poise. David likens them to big cats; constantly alert and scanning the environment. I agree to this to some extent but I have to admit the wild lions I have encountered spent 90% of their simply sitting or sleeping in a housecat-in-front-of-the-fire-like slouch!

An amazing experience though it was, I have also managed to fit other things into my week. Chiefly among this has been designing a new format for reports on wildlife locations I have recently visited. I am currently working on articles on Wollaton Hall in Nottingham and Bradgate Park in Leicestershire.

Last but not least, I am heading off to Donna Nook this weekend with Sam Waldron and Lee Webb. I hope to post some new seal photos and a site report on here pronto. Over and out!