Ethics, Gatekeeping, and Authenticity.

I have said this before, and I will say it again: if you have read any of my social media or blog posts before, you will know that animal welfare and conservation are a huge part of what I do, and why I do it. I love being a wildlife photographer and seek to elicit empathy, curiosity, and understanding through my work. I grew up on Jane Goodall and David Attenborough, and I have spent many a night dreaming of saving species and protecting habitat. I even had an exhibition this summer at Wasagaming Community Arts highlighting the role that social media plays in how we perceive animal life on the planet.

Six months ago, I had the opportunity to make my dreams come true on a smaller, albeit no less important, scale. You see, a few years back, several artists suggested I join up with a collective of wildlife photographers who auction off their work each year in support of various conservation efforts. Not wanting to blow my chance, I waited a bit to ensure that my work was at a caliber that would best represent the organization. At the behest of some creatives who had joined auctions in the past, I finally reached out to the founder. They turned me down.

I was told that because my Instagram account contained photos of captive wild animals (more on that later), I would NEVER be able to raise money to support conservation efforts with the organization. I explained why I had taken photos of captive animals, what the photos were being used for, and that the images were inspired by an organization they had already supported. It didn’t matter. They never replied, and I was unable to auction my work.

From the information in the two paragraphs above, it wouldn’t take much to surmise that I was devastated. But it wasn’t the lack of response that got to me, or the fact that a conservation group didn’t support all forms of conservation. It wasn’t even that the group had a high set of standards by which they operated. It was the fact that the founder seemed to be using ethical wildlife photography as a method of gatekeeping, and it made me furious.

So, what is ethical wildlife photography, and what is gatekeeping, and why don’t I just remove photos of captive animals from my feed? Read on for answers to all those questions and more.

First things first, ethical wildlife photography is an extremely important part of photographing animals and is a massive trend that has transformed the photography community for the better. In essence, ethical wildlife photography is centred around placing the wellness of wildlife ahead of capturing “the shot”. Most organizations that deal with wildlife photography have a code of ethics, which includes minimizing your impact on your subjects and the environment by not baiting, trapping, or manipulating your subjects; not chasing, or disturbing your subject’s natural behaviours by yelling, using calls, or altering the environment; and limiting the amount of time you spend photographing a subject. Ethical wildlife photography also translates into being transparent and authentic about how you edit and share your photographs, including photo manipulation and location sharing. All in all, it’s a pretty solid methodology used to protect the natural world from those that may do it harm.  

Gatekeeping, on the other hand, is when a person uses a position of power to control opportunity or information due to personal preferences, social standing, bias, or professional experience. In wildlife photography, gatekeeping is usually framed through the lenses of equipment, gender, and access to subject matter. A common turn of phrase in the photography community, usually by people with years of experience, disposable income and insanely expensive equipment, is that a good photographer can produce great photos regardless of the equipment they have. While this is true, to some extent, there are a plethora of factors that lead to a successful photography outing that are intrinsically connected to where you are, what type of equipment you have, what you can do with those images afterwards, and who your audience is.

So, how does this all connect to me and my experience, and why am I writing a blog about it? The tricky part about concepts like ethical wildlife photographing is that there are no hard and fast rules regarding what is and is not ethical. Of course, there are some well-regarded standards, such as not injuring your subject to photograph them, but it is the more nuanced areas of wildlife photography where things get muddy. Some wildlife photographers, for example, believe that if an animal notices you at all (sees, smells, hears) then your photos are no longer ethical—see how gatekeeping fits in? While other photographers believe that photographing wildlife is a dance between you and the subject where you adjust on the fly based off the behavioural cues of your subject. The point I am trying to make is that context and intent are key when photographing any subject, and when the rules and regulations that determine if and how a photographer is ethical are as individual as the people creating them, we start to facilitate the act of gatekeeping.

Now let’s look at my work specifically. I grew up in the age of Sea World and travelling circuses. I have vivid memories of riding elephants in my small prairie town and going to the shopping mall to have my picture taken holding a lion cub. These experiences, while appalling by today’s standards, shaped my young mind and made me all the more fascinated by the natural world. Years later, when my wife and I started travelling, concepts like accreditation and ethical traveling were fringe ideas that were only just starting to gain a mainstream footing. Though, to be totally transparent, we never went to animal shows or had our pictures taken with captive animals. Either way, we did our best to research zoos, sanctuaries, and rehabilitation centres and, for the most part, we were successful in weeding out unsavoury establishments. Regardless of where we went, I always felt that the living beings we witnessed deserved dignity, and I would photograph them to show their beauty, their strength and, sometimes, their suffering. As a farm boy, I have often photographed livestock under the same principles.  

After gaining more experience, buying better camera equipment, and embracing eco-tourism, I decided to become a full-time wildlife photographer. At that point, I had a decision to make: what do I do with all my travel photos? Do I remove them from my account so that it appears more professional? Do I start an account from scratch and lose all of my followers? If part of being an ethical wildlife photographer is about being authentic and transparent, would removing those images be deceptive? I thought so.

The early wildlife and animal photography that I took defined me. Through that work, I made mistakes, took bad photos, scared away subjects and learned and adapted to be better the next time. I never harmed an animal outright, but there were definitely times, before I learned to recognize species behaviour, that I got too close, made too much noise, or became a nuisance. But then I changed and grew and tried again. Would I go to some of the same places today that I went to even five years ago? Not a chance! But isn’t that sort of the point? To grow beyond who you were?

One thing I did learn in my early days of travel photography was that there were amazing places doing work that was fundamental to species survival and animal care. Rehabilitation centres and zoos that truly had animal well-being and conservation at heart. I decided that I would return to some of those places and attempt to photograph the dichotomy between captivity and the wild animals placed there. I also wrote a bit about how I chose the places I photographed in, and why those places provided opportunities for wildlife photographers to harness their skills in a controlled setting so as to better protect the animals we photograph in the wild. I also started to conceptualize an exhibit about how society’s view of captive animals has shifted. 

I explained all of this to the founder of the conservation auction six months ago and, as I said, I wasn’t given a response. Perhaps they were extremely busy (although they viewed each response as soon as I sent it), or maybe they felt they had said enough. Either way, I post about conservation and ethical photography often, I donate monthly to Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Fund, and I demonstrate authenticity and integrity in my work and the history of my work. I also donated work to several other charitable wildlife auctions last year and will do so again in the coming months. For all intents and purposes, I feel I am an ethical wildlife photographer who also photographs captive animals ethically and with intent.

So, why don’t I just remove the images of the captive animals and reapply to donate my work, as others have done successfully? Afterall, the work the organization does is incredible and the artists they collaborate with are some of my favourite photographers working today. I would like to think it’s professional integrity. I deeply want to be a part of this organization but, for me, the ethics of wildlife photography should also translate into how photographers treat each other, and I refuse to be deceptive about my work in order to achieve acceptance.

All things considered, I decided to write this blog post, not because I didn’t get to donate work to a cause I hold dear, but because I feel that there is a general lack of respect and conversation permeating the photography community. All organizations focused on wildlife photography should have a code of ethics, but that code should be as transparent as the photography practices being heralded and, while I was by no means entitled to an explanation from the organization’s founder, the lack thereof exemplifies how gatekeeping can, and does, close doors.