Bias against death and decay in nature photography?

Thanks to the cold weather and the frozen St. Lawrence river, I was

recently able to cross to a small island used as a nesting spot by

seagulls. The ground, between patches of snow, was littered by avian

bones. Death, it appeared, took a heavy toll. Half rotten wings, the

only recognizable part of the bodies, always showed the feather

pattern of the young.

 

This was a sad, but unusual sight and I shot a few frames of the

place. I was fascinated by the story of the terrible struggle for life

that is told there every summer, but at the same time, I told myself:

"No one will want to see this. All people want to see is pictures of

cute healthy birds in perfect light."

 

Maybe I'm wrong. The few people who saw the pictures, including the

one above, on my private website, actually reacted very well to them,

saying that they told a terrible story, but that it was worth telling

and that they felt a lot of emotion looking at them.

 

But the fact remains that nature photography rarely seems to bother

with scenes of death and decay. Yet, this process is a very important

part of the cycle of life and there is no reason not to record it. So

why most nature pictures show only the most perfect plant, the most

perfect animal and lush colors? Why so few pictures of burned forests?

 

The bias might be explained by the fact that pictures of death and

decay don't sell. Very well, but why not? I think that developped

societies have a very romantic vision of nature. Our anscestors,

three or four centuries ago, were clearly AFRAID of forests; they

thought of them as dark, dangerous places. We now think of them as

quiet, peaceful and harmonious place and any depiction of nature that

doesn't fit this view is rejected.

 

Yes, nature is in equilibrium. But a complex cycle of death and

destruction unerlies this equilibrium. Many habitats, for instance,

need to be destroyed by fire or by flood before they can rejuvenate.

If we don't document these processes as nature photographers, are we

really depicting the ways of nature, or just the romantic way WE think

about it?

 

OK, perhaps the idea is not completely new, but I just wanted to

discuss a philosophical idea about the purpose of our craft, instead

of just another boring long glass or teleconverter issue!<div></div>

Dead animal images apparently not only sell but fetch a pretty amazing income as well:

<br><br>

http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/news/weird_news/4016378.htm

<br><br>

In case you have not seen them - Edward Weston has a series of images of a dead pelican he found on the beach.

<br><br>

Your image is a powerful one and does indeed tell a story. Death is as much a part of nature as anything else we photograph.

<br><br>

Guy

<a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk/44_9.html">The beauty of death and decay?</a>

Guy, it says that each image sells for $5,000-$10,000 but neglects to say how many have actually sold :>)

 

Howard

... and the fact that the news is published under the "weird news" section emphasizes the fact that most people think that dead animals are not a valid subject for a photograph.

Philippe

 

Perfectly valid subject, in fact every time we shoot Autumn colour we are capturing death and decay. I was once concentrating on shooting fungi, when I had finished I turned around and right behind me not 2 feet away there was a dead rabbit without a mark on it. certainly wasn't there when I started. Freaked me out to such an extent I quite forgot to photograph it. Weird but true!

Philippe, I'm prompted to respond because I think you've captured the texture of the snow and feathers, and exposed the shot, very nicely indeed.

 

That said I think your thesis is right. In large measure pictures of dead animals and birds don't sell. I mean I can't see your photograph, beautiful though it is, hanging on someones wall as a print or a calendar. I can't see it being used as a greetings card or being used to promote someone's product. For all of these purposes beauty and happiness (or at worst neutrality) rule, and I can understand why people tend to think like this. The two circumstances that might be different are use in a book, where people can look, admire, and then close the page; to illustrate some documentary project. Otherwise I'd imagine you'll have to settle for having made an excellent photograph.

 

"Why so few pictures of burned forests?"

 

I spent time in Colorado this autumn and as you'll know there were lots of wildfires there this summer. Quite by accident we came up against the west edge of the Missionary Ridge fire, north of Durango. The ground was covered in pale grey ash which reflected light up into the trees which also had ash ground into the relief of their trunks. The combination of the stark tree trunks and the reflected light was very beautiful and we photographed extensively, mostly in the rain. West Coast Imaging have printed a couple for me and, though I have no scan here to post, I'm delighted with the outcome, and a couple of clients now have these on their walls. I think dead trees are accepted a lot more easily than dead animals and birds.

<p><i>If we don't document these processes as nature photographers, are we really depicting the ways of nature, or just the romantic way WE think about it?</i>

 

<p>We are not documenting processes. Neither we are depicting ways of nature. Nature photography, IMHO, isn't all that different from other photography in that it aims to create strong, interesting images which impact the viewers and affect them.

 

<p>Photographs of death and decay are capable of causing strong emotions, but most people prefer not to take off their pink glasses. Besides, a lot of nature photography belongs to the "pretty bird/animal/flower/butterfly/..." category and death and decay images do not really fit in here. I tend to think of them as being of the same class as pictures of forgotten industrial plants, abandoned houses, fallen-apart machinery... Death and decay.<div></div>

Philippe, some years ago the winner in a Natural History competition, theme "change over time" or some such, was a sequence of fish carcasses washed up on a beach. They ranged from freshly-dead through skeleton, in order of time dead. IIRC, no one complained to the magazine.

 

I use a shot of a dead bass floating in pond scum as the last slide in the programs I give to aquarium societies. Again, no complaints, but its not that bad a picture. Corny but effective.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

Good point about abandoned factory shots and the like, Kaa. But I still think that a dead animal has much more emotional impact than a rusty machine. I admit that most abandoned places shots bore me - but not always.

 

Interesting story about this burned forest, too. I'd like to shoot one, some day, because it's so unusual. I think that the awareness about the ecological importance of forest fires has improved a lot in the past few years. A burned log doesn't remind you too much of your own mortality, too. Both factors probably contribute to make these shots more acceptable nowadays.

 

Note that I don't say that from now on, every nature photographer should spend most of his time documenting decay. I'm just a bit surprise to notice that even in a non commercial context - a PN portfolio, for instance - the subject is usually avoided, or at best is extremely marginal.

 

Unless you consider red leaves and mushrooms as signs of decay, of course. They technically are, but when you spend so much time hunting the nicest maple leave of THE only fungus in the forest that has not been half eaten by slugs, can you still say you're documenting decay? Not really, in my view.

Dunes and skull, Namib Desert

Cape Fur Seal, Skeleton Coast of Namibia

If you ever get a chance look through Jim Brandenberg's "Chased by the Light". I think one of the more powerful images in there is looking into the eye of a dead deer.

 

I've photographed many things as a naturalist that I doubt many would find interesting, wolf droppings, Carrion Bugs eating rodent bodies, numerous skulls, etc. They are there if I ever need them for something.

Well, as long as we're sharing.<p><div></div>

Perhaps aesthetics needs to be included in the discussion. I've come across dead animal subjects when I was actively seeking out their live counterparts for photography (recently 2 different amphibium types), but did not consider taking a photograph nor do I look at it as a missed opportunity. In both cases there were no aesthetic qualities of the situation which I wished to capture on film or convey in images.

 

That doesn't mean that I would exclude any and all scenes of the cycle of life, but just choose very carefully. The images from Namibia which Karl submitted are excellent examples of the type of aesthetic content I would be looking for and consider worthy of capturing on film. Regarding the amphibiums I found, this was not the case and I moved on after some reflection.

<ul>

<li> Many people

seek beauty in nature for its healing quality.

Pictures of death in nature often fail to engage us as much

as pictures related to death of humans.

<li> I

photograph both, however I have the feeling that live subjects are often visually more

interesting than dead/decaying subjects. For instance, a decaying flower doesn't have

the color and shape of a prime one, a burned forest has often a simpler texture than a

(living) forest of bare branches in winter.

</ul>

<a href = "http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np-image.yose1334.html">

This photo of dead trees</a>

 

 

was picked-up by

Peter Arnold (the owner of the stock agency of the same name) over all my other

Yosemite images, but note how the fog and the sparse snow make things come together with the appropriate mood.

On page 1 and page 3 of <a href = http://www.terragalleria.com/parks/np.kobuk-valley.html>photos

of Kobuk Valley National Park</a> there is a series on recently

killed caribou.

<img src="http://www.mopa.org/ritterman02open.jpg"><br><br>

From a recent exhibition in the MOPA in San Diego by Philipp Scholz-Rittermann.

I was once photographing next to Art Morris. A black-crowned night heron flew overhead and we both raised our cameras to get a flight shot. I fired off two or three, but he lowered his camera at the last instant without taking a shot. I asked why and he replied that the bird was missing one primary feather.

 

There are all sorts of biases in nature photography, against boring species, plain species or ugly examples of otherwise attractive species, just to name a few.

I actually seek out dead animals to photo, but mostly in winter. I have some pretty stark images I've collected over the years. Mostly I shoot b&w to make the image more austere. My subjects have been roadkilled deer resting on pillars of snow (sort of like hoo-doos!), a coyote shot by a rancher, a raccoon frozen into the ice of a lake, minnows frozen into clear ice, a group of deer skulls from a deadly blizzard the year before, a possum emerging from the belly of a dead and bloated cow, and so on. Not sure what draws me to these images, but I like them a lot. Here's a link to a really bizarre photo: http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?board=CSX;action=display;num=1042260215

 

 

Kent in SD

I'll simply say I find this thread enlightening and fascinating. I wish we had more like it, instead of so many should-I-buy-the-300mm-or-the-400mm-lens kinds of posts. Thanks very much.

My experience has also been the same. For example, I have an image of a dead egret chick that (probably) died of starvation. Although I think its a powerful image, most of the people I've shown it to have been unimpressed or were even revolted. I have strived to move my photgraphy beyond getting "trophy" portraits of wildlife. Instead, I attempt to document life cycles and animal behaviors -- effectively telling a story. In general, I do prefer vibrant images of plants and animals in their prime. However, for nature photographers interested in telling a story, excluding death and decay really tells only part of the story.

Just wanted to give two more examples:

 

Peter Beard's "Last of the Game", with all the elephant

carcasses.

 

And in Eliot Porter's book "The Color of Wildness", there

is a shot of the remains of one of the sled dogs from Scott's

1911 Antartic expedition....

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo.tcl?photo_id=368038"><img src="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=368038&size=md"></a>

<br><br>An example of a very effective dead animal shot from the photonet pages.

Not strictly nature photography, but a friend of mine is a forensic entomologist. Which means that you have to be very careful when looking though his latest batch of photos - one minute it's landscapes, the next dead human bodies on the same roll... not at all pretty.

 

Anyway, yes, I think generally there is a reluctance to photograph and particularly display death - partly I suspect because it is difficult to make a "pretty" picture from dead things. I've seen some very powerful pictures of dead things - but I wouldn't say they were aesthetically pleasing, although interesting in a morbid kind of way, and representing issues of their own rather effectively.

 

About the only "death" you will see frequently captured on film is large african predators chomping down on some "poor defenceless" antelope, or sharing in the ensuing feast.

I've difficulty connecting with nature photography that presents only ideal/typical images, particularly when it's married to obsessive technical concerns.The result is often what I really dislike:the technically perfect shot that's paralytically boring.Face it, Philippe, "fitting it" matters more than communication for many.Like you, I find a short walk in the woods or bush can turn up much of interest that wouldn't fit in a '50s-style colour "nature" calendar.When nature photography breaks free of its taxidermic roots and tells a story is when I start paying attention.It's a narrative we're all part of, like it or not. Nice shot.