Why photograph wildlife?

*sigh*, How has this thread survived a year?
Requesting thread lock

BirdBoy wrote in post #16344970
*sigh*, How has this thread survived a year?

Well, it had been laying on it's back waving its legs in the air for two weeks, until you decided to revive it!

hollis_f wrote in post #16345054
Well, it had been laying on it's back waving its legs in the air for two weeks, until you decided to revive it!

It was on the first page. I would call that a live thread.

BirdBoy wrote in post #16345088
It was on the first page. I would call that a live thread.

There are 5 month-old threads on the first page Try looking at the dates before you start posting to dead threads. Especially if your post is simply a complaint about it not being dead when it obviously is!


http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=dGFXGwHsD_A

Hollis_F,

Great link to the Bring Out Your Dead bit.

And now I've ensured this stays on page one of new posts. I feel guilty.

Why read old threads? I don't know... why photograph wildlife? <eg> (evil grin)

hollis_f wrote in post #16345133
There are 5 month-old threads on the first page Try looking at the dates before you start posting to dead threads. Especially if your post is simply a complaint about it not being dead when it obviously is!


http://www.youtube.com​/watch?v=dGFXGwHsD_A

I would counter that with the question as to why you felt compulsion to continue this thread that according to you was dead, or on the track to being dead?

Why photograph decaying old buildings or trains or mountains or fields of flowers or girls at the beach?

All that has done before too. I think it's about the individual pursuit and craft of technically and aesthetically pleasing images. It's not about trying to catalog everything in the universe.

with the same logic you wouldnt want to do anything in your life, because pretty much a lot of things were done before and better than you could do.

why play piano or any other instrument, after Mozart and Beethoven already wrote their symphonies?

why learn how to cook great meal at home when you can go out and buy excellent gourmet food at a store/restaurant?

ChrisSearle wrote in post #15093155
I'm both a photographer and naturalist and yet I don't do much wildlife photography. Why? Because 99.9% of the photographs that I could take have already been taken. So many 'nature' photographs these days are simple documentary photographs of the animal, the majority give absolutely no insight into behaviour or often, environment. If I want to see a technically excellent picture of an animal I can go to Google, Flickr etc and find hundreds, why then take more?
As a some-time birder, I'm struck how often I see a group of people all taking the same photograph, what on earth is the point? OK so I guess there maybe an element of self gratification, and why not? But, I would love to see more wildlife photographs where the photographer moves away from the purely 'documentary' style or at least shows me an interesting aspect of the animals behaviour or sets it in an environmental or ecological context.
I have a group of friends who constantly compete to see who can generate the 'best' ( sharp) picture of a bird. With 600/800 mm of fl they make technically stunning and yet to me utterly sterile photographs. And yet this type of photograph seems on the increase, at a birding spot I recently visited there were far more people with long white lenses than there were with binoculars! Whats going on?

I know this thread is ancient, but I couldn't resist.

There's more to wildlife photography than just taking "trophy pics" of birds sitting on a branch. If you put some time and effort in it, you can make unique, beautiful images.

ChrisSearle wrote in post #15785930
I guess what I am railing against is the senseless acquisition of multiple images of the organism, done purely for self gratification without thought for the organism it'self.....

If that had been your initial post, instead of having a thread full of wildlife photogs arguing with you, you;d have had a thread full of wildlife photogs agreeing with you.

Just sayin..

One does not sit at a piano for the first time and belt out the entirety of Beethoven's sonata's. You have to learn the boring stuff first, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" "Mary Had a Little Lamb" etc

So in order to get to the really cool and dynamic wildlife shots, one has to learn their craft by taking the documentary style shots first. Yes there are people who can pick up a camera and take a world class photo or 2, but for 99% of us we have to stick to the basics first and gradually get better. Nobody in this world would ever do anything if we discouraged people from starting out, because their beginning work was boring and lacked soul. We have to encourage people to get better, not discourage people for trying.

Most things in life that are worth doing, are challenging. The harder something is the more reward you get from accomplishing your goals. You hear of piano prodigies, or chess prodigies. You don't hear of a triangle or symbol prodigy. So my long winded answer to the original question, is that its a challenge. Especially getting the truly great wildlife shots, but the easy docu shots, do provide instant gratification, giving me hope that one day, I might be taking breathtaking shots. Plus I marvel at the beauty of nature, even a regular Joe's shots.


BTW i also know, and don't care that I'm digging up an old thread.

Actually, not a bad thread. Reminds me why I do wildlife and birds. 95% of my shots are just another image of a deer, antelope, Moose, or Hawk, heron or owl. But I wouldn't have gotten those other 5% of great (to me) shots if I hadn't been out there shooting in the first place. It's all about being out there with the wildlife in their habitat that I enjoy. If I can get some good images while I'm there, which is what i strive for, so much the better.

I started photography by looking at others pics here and there, and what i do is just testing camera but duplicating others concepts or photographs, year after year i started to do different or give my own perspective or vision or art or whatever you call, slowly slowly i felt i became different than others even i am shooting same subjects others did, and i will never shoot something new unless i am in a new place that no one reached before or have new elements that no one have before, even my new baby is not new because i am the only one who has babies, just same elements but different form/shape/look but same element or subject.

By the way, i also was thinking about why i take pics of this and that when others done it damn way better masterpiece than what i can do even if i use all gear i can and spend all time to shoot, but as majority here said, the fun to do it and the experience[journey] or even trying to make it different is all count, i didn't spend money on gear or travel because i don't want to shoot something others done it before, but to live it, to feel it, i don't care where others reached before me or even after me, but if i do it my way maybe one day i will be a symbol myself and people will recognize me or make my photography as a reference [I hope so].

I take photos for ME only (and to a lessor extent for my family), to either create memories for my trips and experiences, or for the challenge of making a photo that is aesthetically pleasing to me.

I see "nice" photos of common landscapes and wildlife that are much better than I can take, but are still boring to me because I don't relate to them. My lessor quality photos of the same subjects mean more to me because I took them, and I can recall the surrounding sights, smells and feelings that I experienced at that time or during that trip.

The challenges come into play since I'm continually trying to improve my knowledge and abilities in all of my hobbies and undertakings, often to the annoyance of my wife. As I tell her, when you stop learning, you start dying.

I'm sorry if some feel that I'm just wasting my time taking just another Whitetail deer photo or one of Old Faithful (when I get there), but it's my camera and my life, so............

Why live life? It's been done better.



Very best,