In 2005, with Cristina Mittermeier leading the charge, a group of some 50 professional wildlife photographers congregated in Alaska. We became Founder Fellows of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP). The idea was simple – to use photography as a tool for conservation.
Why photography?
The old adage tells us that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. It can be true, but there is more to it than that. Particularly in today’s world of shortening attention spans, an image gets its message across instantly. The right image, the more powerful that message. Images also transcend barriers of gender, age, culture, language and literacy. We can write until we are blue in the face, but text has only a focused audience and must be adjusted to reach different minds. Images will haunt the psyche and cannot be ‘unseen’.
Professional wildlife photography is currently a struggling industry. It seems that everyone now has a photography website. More images are seen today than ever before, but fewer and fewer are being bought and then for scant financial returns, so professional wildlife photographers are finding it harder to make a living from editorial image sales. Recent camera technology is phenomenal and keen amateur photographers are coming away with spectacular images that they are more than happy to give free to magazines simply to see their work published, thus adding to the downward spiral. As ‘amateurs’ are now swelling the ranks and professional wildlife and conservation photographers are having to reinvent themselves to make a living, then I believe the ‘amateurs’ have an obligation to also use their images for the betterment of the species and ecosystems they photograph.
Denne historien er fra November - December 2020-utgaven av African Birdlife.
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Denne historien er fra November - December 2020-utgaven av African Birdlife.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
EXPLORING NEW HORIZONS
Keith Barnes, co-author of the new Field Guide to Birds of Greater Southern Africa, chats about the long-neglected birding regions just north of the Kunene and Zambezi, getting back to watching birds and the vulture that changed his life.
footloose IN FYNBOS
The Walker Bay Diversity Trail is a leisurely hike with a multitude of flowers, feathers and flavours along the way.
Living forwards
How photographing birds helps me face adversity
CAPE crusade
The Cape Bird Club/City of Cape Town Birding Big Year Challenge
water & WINGS
WATER IS LIFE. As wildlife photographer Greg du Toit knows better than most.
winter wanderer
as summer becomes a memory in the south, the skies are a little quieter as the migrants have returned to the warming north. But one bird endemic to the southern African region takes its own little winter journey.
when perfect isn't enough
Egg signatures and forgeries in the cuckoo-drongo arms race
Southern SIGHTINGS
The late summer period naturally started quietening down after the midsummer excitement, but there were still some classy rarities on offer for birders all over the subregion. As always, none of the records included here have been adjudicated by any of the subregion's Rarities Committees.
flood impact on wetland birds
One of the features of a warming planet is increasingly erratic rainfall; years of drought followed by devastating floods. Fortunately, many waterbirds are pre-adapted to cope with such extremes, especially in southern Africa where they have evolved to exploit episodic rainfall events in semi-arid and arid regions. But how do waterbirds respond to floods in areas where rainfall - and access to water - is more predictable? Peter Ryan explores the consequences of recent floods on the birds of the Western Cape's Olifants River valley.
a star is born
It’s every producer’s dream to plan a wildlife television series and pick the right characters before filming.
