Here's a good topic to start a discussion!

[pnodrog]

I take rather the hard line on this one. If is taken in a human constructed environment or with a human habituated or tame animal it's not "Nature Photography". That is not to say it is dreck; it may be a technically and artistically excellent image. But nature it an't.

So an ant in your Kitchen or a snake in your garden is not part of nature? We may need a new word for the future when the human constructed environment smothers the world.

[Mike Buckley]

Many photography clubs and organizations do have specifications which lay out differences between Wildlife and Nature. NG chooses the separation with whatever rules they wish...As long as those guidelines are stipulated...

The rules of the contest didn't stipulate anything about the criteria required to meet the various contest categories. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ng...contest/rules/

[terrib]

I take rather the hard line on this one. If is taken in a human constructed environment or with a human habituated or tame animal it's not "Nature Photography". That is not to say it is dreck; it may be a technically and artistically excellent image. But nature it an't.

I've resisted chiming in on this one, but I just can't help it any longer. Is there really a hard line that can truly be defined? I take a picture of a fox on my property. Is he human habituated? Maybe he's been fed and is. Maybe it's his first pass through the neighborhood. What if I take a picture of a fox in the National Forest that abuts my neighborhood. Is he now wild? How would I or anyone looking at my picture know the difference.

Is the mountain landscape I take from the side of the highway less nature than the one I have to hike 5 miles to see?

I see what you are getting at Trevor (at least I think I do) but I'm just not sure that it's easily defined - at least not in a form that anyone is going to want to read!

I do agree with Andrew that clubs, magazines, whoever can set their own rules and that their definitions don't have to match what we might interpret that definition to be. Unfortunately when there are prizes involved, whether monetary or perceived, then it's ripe for controversy.

[jeeperman]

As for hard and fast lines drawn in the sand.....I think everyone will have a slightly personal take on that. Me personally, nature could incorporate anything in it's natural habitat. A fox that comes in to steal eggs and becomes a little more tolerant of people is natural, nature at work. When that same fox is held captive he is still a product of nature but no longer in his natural habitat.

For me, a nature image is just that...natural. Landscapes are of nature unless it is a cityscape. Although a man made pond let alone and left to grow over get algea and such goes back to nature but a pool kept clean or a backyard built streanm and waterfall with coy is not.

When I speak of wild life....I am referring to that which is still wild, loose and free. A zoo has animals but they are no longer wild, free to roam.

Does any of this make an image more beautiful? Not on the face of it, no. However I do believe there is a huge difference in what the image stands for and in that fact it will mean more and be more beautiful to some. I love to watch animals in the wild and hope we will always have them there but over the years many have disapeared. Someday in the future an image of an certain animal in his natural habitat may be all we have left to see, it would rather suck to see a hidden food bowl in that image or find a piece of fence that was missed while cloning.

Honesty, I think is the key here, make the images that you want to and enjoy doing so and enjoy the image, just don't claim it to be something it is not. Wildlife does not live in a zoo, just as a Japanese Garden's waterfall in Seattle is not nature....although the bird whom flies in to get a drink is.

[pnodrog]

So Paul it is liberty and freewill that help define nature? Actually I think I go along with that so long as we recognize that natures response to the distruction of habitat is not freewill.

[jeeperman]

I agree, it is not freewill and the destruction of nature is one of the reasons we must draw that line. Nature/habitat is disapearing well to fast.

[NorthernFocus]

So Paul it is liberty and freewill that help define nature? Actually I think I go along with that so long as we recognize that natures response to the distruction of habitat is not freewill.

So if an animal of its own free will comes to a bait station, is it still wildlife? How about songbirds filmed in the back yard on a perch above a feeder? A deer photographed on its way to/from a soybean field? Hummingbirds drinking from a cultivated flower filled with sugar water? How about animals that are habituated to human presence? We can keep at this forever.

[jeeperman]

I think hairs could be split til the cows come home in this subject. Wild animals will come to food when it is easy and or efficient. While I would still consider them wildlife, an animal at a bait trap either in the woods or in a farmers feild would not be the circumstances I would use to get wildlife images.

Having lived in Alaska, the Moose comes to mind. I woke every winter morning with them eating leaves off the trees outside my bedroom window. Were they wild...?... yes, the food was plentiful in town and scarce higher up. Would I make that image outside my bedroom and call it wildlife? Only if it was a series called wildlife in town. However if I shot the same moose standing in a river 10 miles out of town, I would not have an issue calling it wildlife.
Although I am betting that you feel near the same as if I were to come acrossed a Mallard here {why bother with another}, they are more plentiful than ticks on a hound.

[tbob]

I don't want to change anyone's interpretation of this point. Seems more a matter of aesthetics and personal taste. This is an explanation of my internal stance. Feel free to have your own and follow your own moral compass.

I have a cut and dried line about what I consider "Nature" and what I am comfortable calling "Nature Photography" in my own photographic endeavors. The bird,plant,mammal,insect or what have you must be in it's natural environment. I admit this can be a little weird, especially in my backyard as I am surrounded by miles of forest. Fox standing on the lawn; not Nature. Fox four feet to the west standing in the aspen trees and undergrowth: Nature. Bird at the feeder: not Nature. Bird two feet from the feeder in a willow; nature. Deer eating my pea plants; Not. Deer two feet from the peas under a spruce tree: Nature. Ant on a stalk of lawn grass; not. Ant one inch away on a fireweed;Nature. And so on. Move the living thing one millimetre from the natural world and onto or into the world of artifice made by people; not nature photography.

I surely wouldn't impose this rigor on anyone else. And not that I don't photograph any and all of those creatures in the non nature scenario. I just don't feel comfortable calling it "Nature Photography". If you show me a picture of a deer in a canola field, I would never think of it as nature photography. It's all context.

[tbob]

I think hairs could be split til the cows come home

Cows coming home: not nature

[jeeperman]

I wondered if someone would catch that. Agreed.

[pnodrog]

So if an animal of its own free will comes to a bait station, is it still wildlife? How about songbirds filmed in the back yard on a perch above a feeder? A deer photographed on its way to/from a soybean field? Hummingbirds drinking from a cultivated flower filled with sugar water? How about animals that are habituated to human presence? We can keep at this forever.

Coming from a country where it seems perfectly natural to teach dogs to drive cars ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=surF1JqP1rU ) I felt exceptionally unqualified to answer your question so I asked my cat. He evidently had an ancestor called Cat Darwin who he claims was in no way at all to be related to Cat Stevens. Anyway C Darwin had a theory that as a matter of survival any cat or other creature should adapt and take full advantage of any opportunity that presented itself and nature expected them to do so. If it included killing a bird in a birdbath or sharing a residence with a human so be it.


Maybe it is a guilty conscience that makes us humans want to define a nature photograph as one where any evidence of our impact on nature must not be shown – personally I prefer the excuse of aesthetics and personal taste as mentioned above by Trevor.

[tbob]

Coming from a country where it seems perfectly natural to teach dogs to drive cars

Great; now when I visit New Zealand in February I not only have to learn to drive on the left I also have to contend with dogs. Do the collies prevent you from turning left or right if you are in heavy traffic? I hope rottweilers are banned because I have enough problems without overly aggressive drivers.

[NorthernFocus]

...personally I prefer the excuse of aesthetics and personal taste as mentioned above by Trevor.

That's it at the end of the day after all isn't it? Here's an example. Which eagle is wilder? One was shot sitting on a bin full of fish guts at a boat harbor (or harbour if you like) three steps from my car. The other was shot on the banks of a salmon stream after a fair treck which included wading across with all my gear. At the end of the day, no one but me can tell and no one but me cares.

[pnodrog]

Great; now when I visit New Zealand in February I not only have to learn to drive on the left I also have to contend with dogs. Do the collies prevent you from turning left or right if you are in heavy traffic? I hope rottweilers are banned because I have enough problems without overly aggressive drivers.

I hope you enjoy your visit. At this stage dogs are highly skilled at chasing cars but have not yet figured out how to hijack them (I suspect rottweilers will be the first) so although there are a lot of dogs on the road very few are actually driving.

[pnodrog]

That's it at the end of the day after all isn't it? Here's an example. Which eagle is wilder? One was shot sitting on a bin full of fish guts at a boat harbor (or harbour if you like) three steps from my car. The other was shot on the banks of a salmon stream after a fair treck which included wading across with all my gear. At the end of the day, no one but me can tell and no one but me cares.

Very nice but both have quizzical expressions - It seems you were wearing pink wading gear at both locations.

[NorthernFocus]

Very nice but both have quizzical expressions - It seems you were wearing pink wading gear at both locations.

So which aspect of that is not natural. The fact that I was wearing pink waders or the fact that it caused the birds to alter their expressions?

At least we finally brought a photo into the discussion.35 posts into the topic without a photo to discuss was begining to resemble a forum on social conciousness rather than for photography

[3Wheels]

Very nice but both have quizzical expressions - It seems you were wearing pink wading gear at both locations.

I can't get that picture out of my head now.

If a flock of geese landed on a man-made lake to rest and feed does that automatically make them less wild than those that landed on a natural lake. More than likely they are exercising the right to let nature take its course. Wild animals will do what they have to, to survive. Their natural habitat will be the place where they can survive. Not where we think they should be. Passing off captive or domesticated animals as being in the wild is a different thing altogether and could be called deceitful.

[FlyingSquirrel]

I tried to resist commenting, but I could not Here are a few key points of my thoughts:

- For me, the "label" you give a photo (nature or not, etc) is only useful in an individual use case, not as a global generality. That said, for Nat Geo, yes, a photo in a zoo is still nature photography. For some other organization, it might not be. Or if you sell on a stock agency, or to a collector, or publish in a book, etc each case might be different. Outside of those type of use cases, the labels are irrelevant IMO.

- That said, I'm in the boat that honesty is key, and in general the specific circumstances and edits of a photo should be openly exclaimed IF it is likely that your audience may assume one way or the other. The difference between a photo taken in a zoo or in the wild doesn't matter to me in general, unless the photographer claims the opposite of the reality. Basically, don't be deceiving, is my opinion.

- In the article, there was some guy ranting about the hard work and long hours of "real nature photography." I laughed out loud at that. In general, it doesn't really matter what you went through to get the shot. A great photo is a great photo, and a photographer SHOULD do whatever hard work is needed to get it, but a shot taken in a zoo could theoretically look as good as one where you crawled through the mud and mosquitoes and leeches. Result is the same- what you did to get it only matters to you (unless you are selling your story with the photo in which case a great story doesn't hurt )

- On a totally unrelated and perhaps inappropriate point, I'd like to say that I'm NOT impressed by the winning photo of the Nat Geo contest. In fact, I quite don't like it. The tiger's eye is weird and distracting.

- Finally, also not really on topic, I was going to enter the Nat geo contest until I read the rules. I did not agree to the rules and I felt that they were very poorly specified, therefore I did not enter. The explanation they gave regarding PP was terrible. Like others said, I think in general we "know" what they mean, but I don't want to waste my time and money with the chance that they'll disqualify me later based on their poor communication.

[pnodrog]

So which aspect of that is not natural. The fact that I was wearing pink waders or the fact that it caused the birds to alter their expressions?

At least we finally brought a photo into the discussion.35 posts into the topic without a photo to discuss was begining to resemble a forum on social conciousness rather than for photography

Altering their expressions according to the visual stimuli they are receiving is perfectly natural. These birds probably saw them at least a mile away explaining the very fixed look.

P.S. Please send me details of your wader supplier.