Animals having sex

Another different topic. At our local migratory bird refuge the Avocets are going crazy. They are mating in front of the camera & I have a good file of courtship, coital & the post act 3/4 turn 'dance' they do. Now, does this make me a wildlife pornographer? Will Orrin Hatch, our Senator who made it illegal to even discuss sex when a model even looks under 18 yrs, come after me?

Actually, the images are good, but what to do with them? Any suggestions from the reading audience? Also, if you want baby avocets, after all the mating & nesting, this place is loaded & will be for the next 3-5 weeks. Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. You could do very well with a 200mm on up. thanks.

Have you tried Playbird magazine? (Rim shot.)

 

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But, all seriousness aside, I've seen nature books that contain such photographs openly displayed on the shelves of morally upstanding bookstores. And nature shows on TV feature mating birds and animals quite regularly.

 

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I've never seen a calendar or poster that showed birds doing the wild thing, though.

These would seem like great slides for books on ornithology. Cornell University has a great program in this area. Why don't you give them a call and see if there is any interest in current text book projects, multi-media presentations, or the like?

Well, you clearly never saw my "WILD SEX" web page! It was a

flagrent attempt to attract unsuspecting viewers to a series

of images I took in Yellowstone some years ago, featuring a rather

amorous bull Elk and several females. It did attract quite a lot

of web page visitors, though some of them were clearly dissapointed

in what they found. I removed the pages in the interest of good

taste (and keeping my web hits down on a server that charged for

excessive hits!). I'd imagine that bird mating shots would be

relatively tame by comparison, since what I can only delicately

describe as their "equipment" is internal - which isn't quite the

case with a bull Elk. I never have found a good use for these

shots - I don't think they are quite the thing that would do well

in my local photo club competition and I doubt they'd sell well

as greeting cards or posters...

Well, if I come back as a bird, make me a killdeer. During my recent visit to Bear River, I saw a pair mate for, oh, at least 10 minutes. Most birds do the cloacal touch thing in microseconds and then act goosey and happy for what seems an innapropriate time :)

 

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More seriously, I think mating photos are probably fairly hard to sell individually. This, perhaps, is an example of the kind of shots that are easier to sell as part of a photo/article package, i.e. a "life cycle" type article of avocet might be salable, where the individual photo is not.

I have a great shot of 2 Alaskan Brown Bears mating and I was wondering , as you are about your birds, if it is a marketable photo. If anyone has any ideas , it would be nice to hear about it. I have not sent it to anyone yet, but if anyone is interested, drop me a line.

I have a shot of Whitetails "doing it" and it's been sent out to a couple of publications editorialy, & has been ignored. A neat, great light "tongue in cheek" shot i have of a pair of elk indulging does fairly well in the print sales arena. Twice now, i've had embarrased wives asking for "that elk shot" because their husbands have requested it for christmas!

 

David Crossley/Crossley Photography....www.crossleyphotography.com

The idea that sex and nudity are pornographic generally applies only when the participants are human, because only humans have been blessed with the "knowledge" that sex and nudity are to repressed. Animals do not gain "carnal knowledge" of each other, at least within the religions most practiced in the United States, because they are assumed not to know what they are doing. Nudity and sex are often considered to be linked when the subjects are human. Photographing animals, we don't insist on diapers or other garments, nor is it considered good practice to add garments afterwards with Photoshop.

 

I believe that part of the social basis for the prohibitions on images showing sex and nudity comes from the possibility of generating inappropriate arousal and/or jealousy towards one of the participants. If this is true, anybody who is offended by photos of animals doing it has to be considered a bleeping pervert.

In Victorian England, the "legs" of a piano were referred to as "limbs" and were often covered to shelter persons of delicate constitution from any impure thoughts.

Look at the following: http://www.photo.net/photo/5780545, not only birds are doing the wilde thing.. :)<div></div>