Mention the ‘R’ word in some circles and hackles rise. Visions of out-of-control wolves on a killing spree spring to mind and primeval fears mixed with deep-seated cultural resentment of change, bubble to the surface. Politics too, is inextricably linked to the potential, or otherwise, for rewilding. Continue reading “Rewilding: Is it time?”
Category: Opinion
Donating the shirt off your back!
I read with considerable interest, if not bewilderment, a letter in the latest edition of Scottish Wildlife, the magazine of the Scottish Wildlife Trust. A well-established photographer had written to all 47 Wildlife Trusts offering them free and unlimited use of his entire British wildlife archive – hundreds, if not thousands, of free images. The premise was that he couldn’t afford a financial contribution so this was his way of supporting the Trusts.
Let me first of all say that it’s a free country and individual photographers are at liberty to do as they wish with their own images. Let me also say that I’m not criticising the photographer personally, simply exploring the motivations for giving away such a valuable resource. To be fair, the conservationist in me applauds his gesture but I can’t help thinking this sets a very dangerous precedent, apart from undermining the livelihood of both hard-working freelancers and profit-stricken picture libraries.
I would like to think I do as much as most to support the conservation community and as a business, we donate significant sums to a variety of initiatives. Giving our hard-earned product away however, invalidates not only my own imagery but that of the community as a whole. Payment for imagery might not be necessary or even desirable for some, but gifting it for free devalues the product and debilitates the hard work of many professionals over the years to convince the conservation community that compelling imagery is something worth paying for.
I don’t know the photographer in question very well and there may be mitigating circumstances that I’m not aware of but in my view, giving away a whole library of images is not just another nail in the coffin, it’s the coffin being lowered into the ground. And just for the record, this isn’t about the money for me, it’s about dismantling the value of imagery, something that this community has fought hard to preserve.
We are undoubtedly at a crossroads in this industry and as much as anyone, I’m groping in the dark a wee bit. We live in tough times when tough decisions are necessary and everyone has different coping mechanisms. I’m not sure however, this is a step in the right direction but I’m happy to be proved wrong.
Any port in a storm?
HMS The Still Image was a fine vessel in her day, safely conveying a select group of passengers to ports stocked with bountiful produce. To board her you had to be in the photographic elite but once you had a ticket, you’d be well looked after, your images respected, valued and capable of providing a healthy living. And then, one day, the omnipresent sun disappeared behind a cloud and a few stowaways sneaked onto The Still Image (I was one of them). And then a few more and a few more. The gallant vessel ploughed on but now more slowly, burdened as she was with extra passengers. As word got around, more and more piled on – a few with valid tickets but many simply lured by the tenuous promise of an easy passage to an easy career in a photographic Shangri-la. The storm clouds gathered and the once spacious, comfortable cabins were now packed full with hungry, ambitious and in some cases, unscrupulous, photographers. They all wanted a slice of the action and who could blame them? With limited space and dwindling supplies, passengers started to squabble like fractious children, like vultures fighting over a rotting carcass.
And so here am I today sitting astride the prow of The Still Image watching the water rise and pondering. The lifeboats have been launched and photographers everywhere are scrambling to save themselves as The Still Image slowly sinks under its own weight. The days of plenty are no more. The promise of a sun-kissed utopian life with a camera in hand is an empty one. The photographic elite have been consumed by a voracious swarm of ‘award-winning’ fresh talent and face a future of uncertainty that was unthinkable just a few years ago.
On the horizon is a distant land, unknown, unchartered. The lifeboat has one more space but even if I jump in, where will it take me? Back to port with all the others and the inevitability of more infighting? The distant island looks tempting, a risk yes but one worth taking? I know that I’m not alone on that prow. Many photographers I speak to today see uncertainty ahead of them. Who is the audience for my images? What do they want from me? How much are they willing to pay? I’ve not heard too many convincing answers to any of these questions. There’s no doubt that demand for visual imagery is still high but competition has seen prices plummet and petty one-upmanship become commonplace. It’s difficult to retain dignity faced with an empty dinner table.
So what of that distant island? Will the innovators, the pioneers, the storytellers, turn their backs on the lifeboat and strike out in a fresh direction; build a new life founded on a new product or service? I hope so. The seas might be infested with sharks but surely better run that gauntlet than face a slow, painful demise scrapping over that rotting carcass.
I love photographing polar bears but does the world really need another image like this? There are 22,000+ polar bear images in Alamy’s library alone.
Empty diaries!
Many thanks for the valuable feedback on photo books – it helps to focus the mind when respected colleagues offer an informed view. So here’s another one and again, I have to concede this is another ‘fishing trip’ for different perspectives (as I seem to have lost mine completely!)
Thank to geography as much as anything, I’ve never been a regular speaker on the camera club or natural history group circuit. Most places are just a long way from where I live. But I know plenty of photographers who ‘speak’ regularly and seemingly at least, are happy with whatever fee they can negotiate. My experience is that most smaller clubs simply cannot afford to pay what I would consider to be an appropriate fee. So what is an ‘appropriate’ fee for a speaking commission?
Let’s assume the talk has to be assembled – or at least tailored and tweaked from a previous presentation. That’s one day taken care of. It has to be rehearsed or at least test-run – another half day. In my case almost everywhere involves a decent drive and by the time travel and delivery is factored in, that’s another day gone. So we’re looking at two days minimum already. Projector (£2,000), laptop (£1200), speaker system (£800) and for me, external AV help (thanks John) – these all have to be accounted for too. And this doesn’t even touch on the years of investment gathering the images/stories which the audience wants to see and hear.
All of a sudden the £75, or £100, or arguably even £500 that the average ‘club’ is able to offer, just doesn’t stack up. Like most photographers, I do some talks for free. They might be good causes, organisations I support or one-off events where, for whatever reason, you want to show your images (we’re all show-offs at heart). Increasingly however, I’m struggling to justify the time against the fee. I’m also increasingly annoyed with myself for ‘apologising’ for quoting a figure which I’ve come to know will shock the enquirer; I feel somehow that I should offer a discount, or at the very least, an explanation. Why?
Photographers, like most in the wider field of ‘wildlife’ or conservation, are under-valued – always have been. That’s something that I accept to a degree, but I don’t accept that my time (along with a decent amount of experience) is any less valuable simply because I choose work that others might consider to be simply ‘fun’.
So back to the question: how much should we charge? To be honest I’m not entirely sure but for what it’s worth, here’s what I do.
My standard fee is £650 + vat + travel. I reduce that to £350 ++ for ‘charities’ and/or good causes and if I’m pushed (which invariably I am), I’ll agree to £250++. I have little idea of how this compares with others (I hope you’ll tell me) but irrespective of how accomplished a speaker and/or photographer you are, the time investment alone makes this a good deal by anyone’s standards.
So is my diary full of speaking engagements? Well no, to be frank. But it’s not empty either and that suits me fine. Some organisations – mainly outwith the traditional ‘conservation’ sector – are happy to pay a realistic fee and where that is the case, I’m delighted to take the booking. I recently delivered a talk and was offered a ‘standard’ fee of £1500. For me that was very much the exception but proves nevertheless, that an audience exists and is willing to pay realistically. It really isn’t about the money; it’s about being valued and there’s a BIG difference.
Against the backdrop of falling sales across almost all sectors in this business, my view is that we shouldn’t buckle on this front. There are some fantastic speakers, images and stories out there just waiting to be told. Anyone who attended Wildphotos recently will I’m sure, attest to that. I’m not suggesting a militant uprising by the hard-line mavericks of our small industry, but I am suggesting that if we continue to under-value ourselves, we can’t blame our potential customers for doing the same.
Empty coffee tables
I’ve got a mate who works for a well-known producer of ‘coffee pods’, sealed units of powdered DIY cappuccino, latte, mocha and myriad others which cover a cocktail of coffee, milk and water. You can buy pods in all manner of sizes – venti, grande and tallgrandewithextragrande – small, medium and large to you and me. According to my mate, sales of ‘pods’ are going through the roof along with the pretentiously branded machines that gurgle and splutter out the finished product (presently appearing on our TV screens every 30 seconds or so, such is the anticipated yuletide demand). The world has apparently gone mad for over-priced, over-hyped, over-my-dead-body coffee products.
Don’t get me wrong; I like a cappuccino as much as the next man. There’s nothing better than sitting down with a frothy concoction and drooling over a lavish coffee-table photo book. It seems however that these days are numbered. It seems that only two of the trio of coffee, coffee table and coffee table book have a future.
Back in the day (I’m never quite sure when ‘the day’ actually was) the Holy Grail for most nature photographers was to produce a book. I was the same. It was a symbol that somehow you’d ‘arrived’, that you were a ‘proper’ photographer; you could even be referred to as an ‘author’. It was never a financial thing; it was a ‘feelgood’ thing and if you could at least cover your costs, it was worth doing. Not any more.
I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion – fuelled by dwindling sales, dwindling interest, dwindling employment across the publishing sector and more significantly, the stack-em-high, sell-em-cheap tactics of the likes of Amazon – that the coffee table photography book is dead. Or is at least gasping its last breath. Do you know that Amazon can sell my latest (co-authored) book (including postage and packing) cheaper than I as one of the authors, can buy it for? I’m the greengrocer on the High St. watching Tesco shut me down. The coffee table book was once a badge of honour for the author, something to be savoured by the reader. Now like most things, it’s a cheap, disposable commodity. The photographic High St. is becoming full of empty coffee tables.
And my point? Well like the High St. greengrocer or the miners under Thatcher, we can whinge and whine about unwelcome change, but rarely are our voices heard. No, we must buckle down and reinvent ourselves because our voices need to be heard; we must fill the gap on the coffee table with something different. Sad it may be, but nothing stays the same forever and change is very much the thing in photography just now. And here’s the crucial point: books are just stories. They feel nice, they smell nice, they are nice but they’re just stories. Us photographers mustn’t get disillusioned, we must continue to invent and then tell new stories. Not in a £25 book perhaps, but through different platforms. We need to keep the coffee tables of tomorrow full of inspiring, insightful and compelling stories about nature.
A funny old week…
It started with a 1000-mile round trip to deliver a presentation in Derby, the place I grew up in. The talk was attended by an old school teacher of mine and a smattering of friends and family huddled on the back row (there were others there too you understand!) Weird.
Tuesday brought about a meeting to secure the 2020VISION roadshow in The National Forest – this from discussions that have stretched over the best part of 2 years. Relief.
Wednesday was a relatively normal day in the office although we did buy 5 Highland Cows as conservation grazers. Daunting. I also met with a mate of mine who revealed insider knowledge about a rather exciting reintroduction project about to be unleashed. Intriguing. This was also the day I heard the news about the Manchester police women being shot. Shocking.
Thursday took me to a photographer friend’s for an update on various matters and contrary to the usual frivolous nature of our discussions, today was more sombre as a member of his family is very unwell. On returning home I was greeted with the news that our old Highland pony (he’s not ours actually but he lives with us) was lame and would need to be put to sleep. Sad and Sobering.
An early call yesterday created a meeting with a local landowner about a potential commission documenting a massively ambitious restoration scheme in the Highlands. Inspiring.
As I sit here writing, Amanda is busying around getting stuff together for our holiday to Yellowstone. Bizarre.
So what’s all this got to do with a photographic blog? Well if truth be told, I’m feeling a bit emotional; high emotion has been the common denominator throughout this last week. The more I think about the state of the natural world and what can be done to right some of the wrongs, the more I become convinced that we don’t use our unique capacity for emotion creatively enough. I read a while ago that generally speaking, people’s relationship with nature isn’t rational or scientific; it’s emotional. And it’s true. You can peddle all the ecological science, all the socio-economic data, all the conservation buzzwords you like, but for most people, nature is something they ‘feel’. Great photography is something that makes people ‘feel’.
As a nation we’ve done a pretty good job this summer ‘feeling’ the Olympics and Paralympics and what high emotion reigned for those few weeks. But spectacular as they undoubtedly were, these are transient events, moments in time. If only we, as a society, could harness that Olympic energy, that high-octane emotion and mobilise it for nature. That would be something worth getting up on Monday morning for. And Tuesday. And Wednesday.
Red or grey – is it black or white?
I’m not a red squirrel biologist but as I understand it, this is pretty much the situation as it stands with the species’ conservation: Red squirrels in the UK occupy only fragments of their former range with their remaining stronghold being the pine forests of northern Scotland. The primary reason for their decline is believed to be the introduction of the non-native grey squirrel which has spread and out-competes the red as well as passing on a potentially fatal disease. Where embattled and cornered red squirrels are threatened by the ongoing invasion of greys, conservation action is being taken primarily in the form of grey squirrel ‘management’ (aka culling). Is that it in a nutshell? No doubt someone will tell me if not.
Assuming my simple analysis is correct, here’s my question: Is it feasible, or desirable even, to defend red squirrel strongholds in the long term by fending off greys? How long can we keep this up for – 5 years, 50 years? 500 years? My understanding is that we’ll need to keep this up forever if we’re to retain red squirrels as a viable UK species.
Here’s my next question then: Is this a good use of time, effort and funding? Nobody wants to see red squirrels disappear (nobody I know at any rate) but surely we face a stark choice if we accept that the present regime is untenable:
1. We succumb to the relentless march of the grey and accept the extinction of UK reds.
2. We invest our energies in completely eliminating grey squirrels from the UK.
Option 2 has many barriers. It’s expensive, time consuming and some would argue impossible to completely eradicate grey squirrels such is their stranglehold (I would personally suggest it’s difficult but not impossible). Then there’s the question of societal sensitivities – for many people, grey squirrels provide their only contact with nature and never having seen a red squirrel, form part of their cultural backdrop. Finally there is a moral argument that challenges the need to kill any healthy animal regardless of origin.
So with all doors presently closed, we have no choice but to carry on as we are. But didn’t we already establish that wasn’t feasible?
I don’t know the answer to this dilemma by the way, but I do know that trying to marry political and cultural sensitivities with ecological integrity is at best, damned tricky and as a consequence we tend to tread the ground that upsets fewest (human) agendas – the sticking plaster approach. In my humble opinion with the consequences of indecision now well documented, the sticking plaster is no longer good enough: we’re talking major surgical procedure here.
What would you do if you held the keys to the piggy bank (or to the gun cupboard)?
Who’s the best nature photographer? And why?
I enjoy being alone but even I have a limit, so after two full days isolated on Shropshire’s Stiperstones ridge recently, I welcomed the arrival of another photographer and his obvious desire for some philosophical musing. After some collective grumping about the light, he popped the question: “So who’s the best nature photographer in your opinion?” I’ve been asked this a fair few times over the years and never been able to offer a definitive suggestion as to who, or a convincing argument as to why. This was no exception and I fudged my response but a 450-mile drive home gave me time to ponder.
There are many contenders in my book. My old buddy Mark Hamblin for his insane consistency; the annoyingly talented Vincent Munier for his visual artistry; the equally annoying Stefano Unterthiner for his ability to spot a story and nail it; colleagues Andy Rouse and Danny Green for their work ethic; Alex Mustard and Tom Peschak for their pioneering underwater work, ditto Paul Nicklen; Staffan Widstrand for his unrelenting drive; Orsi and Erlend Haarberg for showing us true beauty; Niall Benvie for provoking thought and discussion; Laurent Geslin for sticking to a tight plan and making the most of it. Sandra Bartocha for just being bloody good. And then there are the giants from across the pond – Mangelson, Brandenburg, Doubilet – all proven, committed and talented artists. There are of course many, many more.
I fudged my response to the young man at Stiperstones because it’s impossible to choose just one; it depends what the criteria is. There’s one thing that each one of these photographers has given me at different times: Inspiration. The question then is not “Who’s the best?” but “Who’s the most inspirational?” That of course is even more subjective and opens up a different can of worms (I can tell you though that despite my gratitude for years of help, Hamblin’s toilet etiquette puts him out of the running at this point. Ditto Benvie’s weird ideas about chocolate and Green’s pie-eating prowess. And Munier is just too nice to be inspirational).
Anyway back to the issue at hand. Around 20 years ago I nervously picked up the phone to Laurie Campbell who kindly offered me some advice on my rather naive perspective on a career in nature photography. At that time – and things have changed radically in the last two decades – Laurie was almost unique in his creative approach to capturing British wildlife on film (just google ‘film’ if you’re under 25). The range and extent of Laurie’s coverage remains unsurpassed even if his style has been endlessly emulated and, if Laurie doesn’t mind me saying, developed and improved. So in terms of personal inspiration, Laurie gets my vote even 20 years on.
But there’s something else to consider here. If there are two things in life that I can’t abide (other than Bush and Palin – sorry but my respect doesn’t even stretch to using their forenames) it’s cruelty and unfairness, however they might manifest. Laurie’s work, perhaps above all others, has shown consistent honesty, humility and regard for his subjects. In a world where competition increasingly drives unsavoury behaviour, these are undoubtedly traits to be proud of.
If any of us nature photographers are to leave a legacy, and in my opinion we should all at least try, it surely should be one of inspiring others. Occasionally being thanked for doing so is without question the greatest reward in this often-unrewarding work. I’m presently pondering my future direction (does that sound like a pretentious out-of-work actor?) but whatever I end up doing, I’ll strive to inspire. And I’ll strive to be fair. If I succeed in either I’ll be content.
I didn’t exchange details with the young man at Stiperstones but I’d like to thank him for catalysing a thought process. It won’t be the last time this subject is visited but at least when I’m next asked the question, I’ll have some thoughts put aside.
Votes of your own, criticism of mine and general comments welcomed. Perhaps we should all meet on Stiperstones ridge one day?
The best osprey photography location in Europe?
Around four years ago I stood with the owner of a local estate watching a huge JCB shifting dirt this way and that. It had been a few years before that, when initial discussions took place at Rothiemurchus Estate in the Cairngorms, about creating a dedicated photography pool for fishing ospreys. This against a backdrop of UK photographers travelling to such sites in Scandinavia and paying handsomely for the privilege. And so, the best part of a decade later, after much dirt shifting, a few false starts and not inconsiderable teething problems, the pool is open and the ospreys are fishing it!
Photographing ospreys at Rothiemurchus isn’t cheap – roughly £120 per session – and for those who have previously used the site, you’ll know that shots were by no means guaranteed. The birds could fish over an extensive area and it was hit and miss whether they would dive near enough to the hides to get a decent sized image. Shots are still not guaranteed but with the new pool, you’re in with a much better chance of the plan coming together. Two low-level hides look out over a small lochan and if a bird dives anywhere in view, there’s a shot to be had. The backgrounds are good, the hides are well positioned and what has never been in doubt is the staff’s enthusiasm to help you secure the best shots possible.
I’ve been asked about the merits of osprey photography at Rothiemurchus many times and I’ve got to be honest, I’ve sat on the fence for the most part. Now I’m not on commission (are you listening Julian?) but I do like to see hard work and a pioneering spirit rewarded, so I would now say with some confidence that this is the finest location I know of, even taking into account the well-visited Finnish facility, for photographing fishing ospreys; not just in Britain but in Europe. OK it’s early days but if you’re thinking about travelling to Finland, my humble advice would be to consider this facility first.
You can book directly with Rothiemurchus here but if I can be candid, I’d recommend our very own package which includes full accommodation, food, transport, tuition and an added bonus, exclusive osprey photography at our own private site. You can view the tour here and although this year’s dates are full, here are the provisional dates for 2013:
May 11-15; July 13-17; July 20-24. Drop us a line if you want to be put on the reserve list.
The images in this blog are a mixture between Finland and the ‘old’ Rothiemurchus set up. If all goes to plan with the new pool, there will be a whole new generation of osprey images appearing in the media taking the bar to new heights.
