Be a Guest, Not a Conqueror

Why Are You Out There?

Before we get into anything else, I want you to sit with a question. Next time you're out in the woods, the marsh, wherever you shoot, ask yourself why you're actually there. Not the easy answer. The real one.

I ask because this whole post is about mindset, and coming off a long five week series like WILD, one that tried to teach a method for seeing, it felt wrong not to follow it with something on how we think when we're out there. So that's what we're doing today. Fair warning, this one might get a little uncomfortable. Sorry in advance for that.

I don't really want to talk about this as a list of rules. That's often counterproductive, and if you're anything like me you'll just try to bend or break the rules anyway. So instead let's talk about it in the abstract.

The Conquest Problem

I see a lot of wildlife photographers treat the art form like a conquest. The hero's journey. They build a narrative of struggle and exceptionalism around how they brought you the shot and how much they deserve credit for it, how they braved the elements, waited for weeks, all of that. Frankly that's just the wrong way to look at it.

Now, wildlife photography is hard. It might be one of the most demanding disciplines of photography there is. Heavy gear, uncomfortable positions, really crappy hours, bad weather, the works. But never forget a couple of things.

First, going out at all is a choice. One I make willingly, and I'd bet most others do too. Second, the moments we get to witness, the things we get to see, it's honestly a joy and a privilege. For me anyway, the whole art form is about translating those feelings and experiences into a format other people can enjoy. That's the mindset I want you to carry into the rest of this.

You Are a Guest

When you're out in the woods, or the marsh, or wherever else, never forget that you are not a conqueror. You are a guest, and you always will be. More than that, you are a guest in someone's home, and you were never invited.

Should an animal choose to give you an image, consider yourself lucky that it was kind to you. Luckier still that the universe was. Because here's an uncomfortable truth. You are not, and never will be, owed an image. It's really that simple. Nature owes you nothing for your time, so everything you get is a gift. And if you can really sit with that and internalize it, you'll be much happier to just go for a nice walk and maybe get lucky. You'll also be much less tempted to do the things that make you a very bad guest.

What That Looks Like in Practice

This part is more concrete, and it's nowhere near an exhaustive list, but it's a start:

• Follow the rules of where you shoot. The people who made them know far more about what the animals need than you do, and owning a camera is not a degree in conservation.
• Stay on the path. It exists for a reason, and so do the areas without one.
• Don't crowd nests. A photo is never worth a stressed parent or an exposed clutch.
• Don't flush animals. If it moved because of you, you got too close.
• Crop instead of closing the distance. Use it. You've got something like 45 megapixels in that camera. I know this one feels counterintuitive, especially since contests still cling to rules about not cropping much, but a heavy crop costs you nothing important. Pushing closer can cost the animal a lot.

Stay back. Be responsible. Don't mess with the animal.

The Accessibility Problem

Look, I love how accessible wildlife photography is these days. I really, really do. But part of that influx of new photographers, and I'm one of them, by the way, is that a lot of people just don't think about their actions out there. They don't carry a deep, inherent respect for wild places and the things that live in them.

I can't force that respect on you. But I can tell you that if you don't shoot responsibly, if you put the shot over the animal, you are part of the problem. And I will take serious issue with that.

There's also a bigger, uglier side to this that I haven't touched. Baiting, geotagging sensitive nests, the ways social media and contests quietly reward all of it. That's a whole post of its own but for today I just wanted to start with the mindset, because everything else grows from there.

If you want to dig into the parts I didn't cover here, you don't have to take my word for any of it. A few organizations have put real thought into this, and their guidelines are worth a read:

• Audubon's Guide to Ethical Bird Photography and Videography is probably the most thorough one out there. It covers baiting, nests, drones, geotagging, game farms, all of it.
• NANPA's Principles of Ethical Field Practices from the North American Nature Photography Association is short and focused on judgment over rules, which fits how I tried to frame this whole post.
• The Nature Photographers Network Code of Conduct is also a good one, and funnily enough it lands on the exact same idea this post is built on. Their words: you are intruding on the animal's world, you are its guest.

So next time you head out, just remember. Be a guest, not a conqueror. You, and all the animals, will be better for it.