Is this wildlife photography?

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Natural wild life photography shall contain NO human elements or influence......

I think if a bird lands on your roof, its a wild life creature free, free to do what it does naturally as long as it hasn't been influenced by man.

If one puts out food to attract a bear, fox, bird to come around in to the back yard to get photographed, to me that's not wild life photography in the true sense.

Some Bee photographer's spray a little liquid sugar to attract the bees........

To me wild life is a free creature doing what it does naturally in a wild natural environment in a fully evolutionary manner.

Some of the international competitions spell out rules very clearly, but can be difficult to implement 100%.

The rules and criteria vary at times, but more often spell out, entries shall contain no human elements or influence......


That's Only an opinion
 
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Bill G. said:
And this is exactly why this forum is so great - tons of different perspectives and viewpoints. Always good to understand how others view the world. We view the world with our unique set of “glasses” and sometimes forget it’s not the only set of “glasses”. Makes you stop to ponder and appreciate similarities and differences.
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Agree, and often it expands or changes they way you understood or believed things should or could be.
Its a way to expand ones mind, or in cases become less ignorant.
Knowledge is power, power to understand.
Freedom of speech, dialog, discussions are the path to knowledge.

Only an opinion
 
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Hi, here is my wildlife photo, isn’t it perfect?

By the way, that perch that you see in the photo is setup by me, in order to “make” the bird land there for my perfect wildlife photo, I purposefully placed some baits to lure them from their natural habitat, I mean which wildlife doesn’t care for an easy meal it is good for them and makes my job so much easier. Also I had remove the distracting elements in the photo using photoshop so that this would be perfect, not to mention the fact that I had blurred out the background for a little more oomph.

What do you mean this is not a wildlife photo, what? 90% of the image was edited? Hey the last time I checked the bird is from the wild… so wildlife photo check marked. It’s hard work to setup the stage adjust the angle and tune the auto capture dun you think?

Why all those editing was not disclosed?? Well isn’t this the same as it was to be disclosed? 😇
 
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The standards held by one defers from one another so does pride as a wildlife photographer, only the one that makes it via hard work can truely understand what it takes to be a wildlife photographer. Are you inspired to take perfect photos or better photos? Challenging yourself or just others?
 
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The "photography" part of it is easy in my estimation. That qualifies up to #10, but not #10. No matter how many different photos ChatGPT draws upon, the end result was not what is conventionally defined as a photograph. Merriam-Webster would define that as "the art or process of producing images by the action of radiant energy and especially light on a sensitive surface (such as film or an optical sensor)".

The "wildlife" component becomes the debatable aspect. What I think as wild is not necessarily what you think as wild. I also don't believe it has anything to do with the way it makes me "feel" when I take the photo. Again, I could choose to "feel" anyway that I want to justify a categorization. The video has given many examples for each of the steps on the continuum. I don't even necessarily agree with some of that. If a lion is in a game preserve in Africa, free to roam, but used to the presence of humans and their vehicles to the point that they show no fear, is that lion "wild" now? Most people would seem to think so.

An example given earlier about a bird that happened to land on a rooftop where it was photographed could also be questioned. Would that bird have even stopped if the roof wasn't there? Would the bird have stopped if it didn't know that somewhere around the house were seeds that had been dropped for some other purpose besides attracting it?

Many of the questions raised by the video around photography contests and whether a picture would qualify in the "Wildlife" category. IMO that's easy. The contest needs to very clearly spell out it's rules. If it isn't disallowed, then in that instance, it's "wildlife". In the end call it whatever you want. I just want to take a great photo that reminds me of the places I've been and the things I've seen.
Oh yeah, I think it's good to bring these things up just as a previous post suggested. There's always new people joining or just now contributing that want to weigh in . . . like me. :D


BTW, Merriam-Webster's idea of "wildlife" : living things and especially mammals, birds, and fishes that are neither human nor domesticated
 
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PhilcTx said:
IMO threads such as this as well as the video are basically click-bait.

Everyone has their own opinion that is unlikely to be changed in a meaningful way and there will never be a general consensus.
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Agree, the internet is full of click bait and this is one of them,.................. but never the less i shared an opinion LOL
 
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Personally, I don't believe in staging or baiting any wildlife for photography. It isn't wildlife if you are altering their behavior in any way. So building a bird bath or feeder and creating a staging area for them to perch in front of you isn't wild behavior. If that is what you want or need to do it's fine you are not pressuring them or stressing them obviously.

I am fine with sitting in a blind and waiting for something random to come along and happen. I personally dont use blinds either. I will walk around and find areas that look interesting and sit and wait. In most cases wildlife will come to you and sometimes they get too close when they get curious.

As far as AI, That obviously is a no but you can easily tell when an image is AI generated. To me it usually sticks out like a sore thumb.
 
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