Back in the days of slide film and SLR cameras that tended to freeze in the cold — literally and figuratively — landing a sharp image of a bird in flight was a miracle, a past president of the North American Nature Photographers Association recalled to Audubon Magazine’s Ted Williams.
Williams was researching an exposé of fake wildlife photos, in which amateur photographers — and more than a few professionals — take wondrous photographs of sleek, well-fed, nearly-impossible-to-find animals like snow leopards and Siberian tigers in game farms, then pass the images off as wild captures.
Today, 10 years after that article first appeared, the practice is still widespread. Perception is everything after all, and we now live in a world where a sharp image of a snow leopard will no longer do: It must be a close-up with perfect focus on the eyes, and preferably a cub or two in tow, if it is to sell in the increasingly crowded, competitive field of wildlife magazines and nature documentaries.
The photo is beautiful, but is it right?
The issue isn’t just a question of semantics, but ethics. The wildlife game-farm industry isn’t regulated. And while game-farm models — from owls, eagles and wolves to bobcats, mountain lions and the more exotic big cats — may look healthy, the moment the paying clients leave, taking their cameras with them, the animals are locked away in small enclosures, cages even. They’re bred, bartered and treated like commodities, which to the brokers and others who ply the trade they are. The bottom line counts for everything, and the bottom line allows little room for sentimentality.
Interestingly, in 2020 and now into the new year, the backlash is coming not so much from government regulation but rather growing awareness on the part of high-profile nature periodicials that value reputation and quality over turning a quick buck at the checkout counter.
Society is becoming more attuned to viewing captive animals as living, sentient beings that deserve a more fulfilling life than to be locked away in tiny enclosures for 22 hours a day, or more in some cases.
National Geographic, Audubon, Smithsonian and others will no longer run captive-animal photos, and will identify them in the caption on those rare occasions when an image seems to good to turn down. Other periodicals, and most if not of the major stock agencies, aren’t so fussy.
Most high-profile nature-photo competitions now require photographers to sign a form confirming their submission was taken in the wild but, again, not all photo competitions do.
Sadly, there’s much in Williams’ article for Audubon that still holds true to this, 10 years after his exposé first appeared. Some issues never die, it seems, or even fade away.
The full article is well worth reading, and can be found here:
https://www.audubon.org/magazine/march-april-2010/phony-wildlife-photography-gives-warped-view