National Geographic - nature photo, or not?

Dear all,

 

could anybody describe me the meaning of the express "nature

photography"?

 

Read this before answers:

 

http://www.naturephoto.hu/natgeo_english/index.html

 

Regards,

Gyuri

While I lack the very basic skill set to determine if the techniques used to explore the nature of the original photo are good, I will have to say that the web page is very compelling.

 

I'm curious how others view this.

I remember being blown away by this photograph when it was published in National Geographic. I had been watching similar birds here, and thinking how utterly impossible they seemed to be to photograph due to their incredible speed and erratic flight.

 

This article is very interesting... I certainly am not skilled or knowledeable enough to know whether the photo was fake. I'm not sure the article is detailed enough for me to think they have a compelling case though.

 

If the photo was staged with a stuffed bird, I suppose it's very immoral to pass it off as a wild shot, but that's not nearly as bad as disturbing a nest or something, at least in my opinion.

Well I'm neither a professional or nature photographer and while I could not give you the express meaning of "nature photography" I definitely would not consider this apparent staged/manufactured composite an example of nature photography. Reminds me of a class that I took where the instructor abhorred any post shot manipulation of any kind. Well the last day of the class he showed us one of his better shots. It was of a small mushroom. He explained how he got the picture. He found the mushroom but not in the setting that he wanted. So, he pulled it out of the ground and staged it in front of a tree trunk. But that didn�t have the background that he licked so he tore up some Ivy and placed in behind the tree. He then took some moss from behind and put in front of the mushroom. Build a fence around the whole setup so that it would not be affected by the wind. Then positioned three different color reflectors, a green on for the Ivy, a pink one for part of the mushroom and a third one whose color I don�t remember. To finish the scene he positioned a dead Praying Mantis, that he had bought along, in the scene

 

He considered this a �pure� un-altered nature shot. I did not and questioned him about it. His explanation was since it was recorded on a single slide in the field and it might be possible to stumble upon the manfactured scene in the wild, it was a �good� shot. But, even he would most likely would not consider this shot from NG as a nature shot.

express = expression

Sorry for the mistake ;-)

The evidence looks pretty solid that the image is staged and I applaude the authors for making this situation known.

 

If it's staged, it's not nature photography. It could be used as an illustration, but it should be marked as such.

 

Good luck in getting any response from NG. I'm pretty sure their attitude will be to keep quiet and hope the whole thing goes away. Without an admission from the photographer that the image was staged, they are in an awkward situation.

 

I remember that there was a discussion of another "impossible" image used by NG (I think) in some advertising. I recall it was a shot of Half Dome in Yosemite with impossible lighing (wrong sun and moon angles at either dawn or dusk). I don't think NG ever addressed the issue and it just faded away and most people just forgot about it.

The translation to English seems to have been a rocky one, for example:

<p>

<em>The NGM inner investigation has evaluated all (?) data, and found them authentic.</em>

<p>

What data has been evaluated? Is it the data presented in the article? Did the magazine use anything presented to us? What did they find authentic? Did they determine the photo to be authentic based on this "data?"

I remember being first amazed by and then skeptical of this photo when it came out. I also remember some discussion about it in photo.net at the time. Maybe it was in the unarchived section. If not, searching on 'kingfisher' or 'mayfly' may turn it up.

 

For my part, and this may be my lack of sophistication with advanced and/or multiple flash lighting situations and IR triggers, I don't understand why the mayfly larval carcasses or whatever they are on the water's surface were not lit in part by the flashes. They are in complete shadow, i.e., black. The flashes would have to be more than 90 degrees from the lens's axis for the black stuff to be in complete shadow, and I find that highly unlikely given the way the kingfisher and mayfly are lit. So that suggests digital manipulation as well as staging.

I agree that nature photography should exclude any kind of staged shots. And that staged shots should be labeled as such.

 

<p>The following shot in the same article should perhaps also be the subject of scrutiny :

 

<a href = " http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0305/feature3/zoom6.html">

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0305/feature3/zoom6.html

</a>

 

<p>I for one find the splash spot a bit queer as well as the oh-so-perfectly placed water drops.

 

<p>Looks like as "faking" techniques are perfected, photographers producing perfect shots will have more and more explaining to do...

Regarding Patrick Dumais's question. The water drops look real, but the center of the radiating ripples is too far behind the bird. The drops should hit the water directly below the bird's beak, which is below the image's field of view. The photo is a fake!

I'm sure József Szentpéteri is a terrific "straight" photographer, but I find it difficult to trust *any* photos from a photographer once he has offered one phony shot as real. And this article is very convincing.

 

I remember that shot, too, and it made me wonder how it was taken. I assumed it was staged -- but I presumed a controlled environment with live creatures.

 

In looking at the shots on József's site, my reaction was that they are digitally manipulated, some much more than others, to make portions darker, more blurred, or more saturated, and also cropped for composition. That sort of manipulation I don't really have a problem with, but the idea of posing *dead* animals for "nature" photography sickens me. I hope this shot really was just staged in a controlled environment and wasn't stuffed bird glamour photography :-(.

Thank you guys for bring up this article. I found it fascinating. As a naturalist first and a photographer second I really am sorry to see this kind of thing pop up with increasing frequency. I recall when one of Pratical Photography's grand nature winners (with a Red Fox on a stump) was proven to be a fake too (digital I think). Obviously there are much more sinister photography crimes but its a pitty that the little nature that we still have left in the world can't be appreciated for what it is. What we could be left with is only idealized forms of nature.

 

Not that any of this is new. The American Landscape painters of the mid 1800's and the Hudson River school of art (like Cole and Church) were famous for creating dreamly western (US) Landscapes that never existed. I doubt they were the first to do this either.

I am presenting the following real nature, unstaged flight picture with technical details, because it has some similarity to the National Geographic photo:

 

<a href=http://www.imagestation.com/album/?id=4290233617>Allen's hummingbird</a>

 

(click on the picture to get a larger picture)

 

Canon EOS 3, EF 300 mm f4L IS lens at closest focus (4.9') at f18 (depth of field is about 2.5"), Provia F 100 ISO slide film. Canon 550EX main strobe on right, 1/64 power, 8" from bird, Canon 550EX fill strobe on left 1/128 power, 8" from bird. Blue paper background 2' behind bird, lit by 2 Nikonos SB105 strobes on slave mode at 1/16 power. Manual focus, manual exposure. To get proper framing and exposure, the hovering bird had to be placed within a patch of air about the size of a cigarette box. This is possible, but difficult with a hovering hummingbird. In my opinion, it is impossible with a bird moving at 20-35 mph.

Corrections: the film was drugstore scanned Gold 100 (later I switched to Provia). I ran the distance and f-stop through a depth of field calculator, and it said 0.8". Makes it more clear to me why I was throwing out so many out of focus shots.

Don,

 

thank You for posting good examples about the hovering hummingbirds.

You are right, it is impossible to get similar shots with a bird moving at 20-35 mph in front of the lens.

 

You can find few more kingfisher pictures from the authors of the web page, at the following link: http://www.naturephoto.hu/gallery/index.html

Excellent information � I can only hope that public knowledge about this will help to stop talented photographers from even thinking to do the same. I personally enjoy taking photos in nature and also in controlled conditions (like Zoos for an example) as well as manipulated some of them as illustration. But presenting staged, faked photographs to pure nature competitions or magazines is a simple fraud, which should take all the credits from the photographer. You just can�t trust him/her anymore. Just another very good example how the chasing fame can make people becomes very unethical.

 

On another hand can�t stop myself from posting probably the standard email reply the NG is sending to photographers � see below. This tread is showing one more example that they are not really good in judging people or photographs. I have a hard time to believe that pro photo director and editor did not have serious doubts when they saw that photo.

 

Thank you for contacting the National Geographic Society.

 

The Society does not accept unsolicited manuscripts or photographs. Our editors meet regularly to discuss possible story ideas. If an idea is decided upon, the article is then assigned, usually to someone with whom we've worked before or to someone with many years of outstanding work in the field of journalism.

 

It is extremely difficult to win a first assignment with the Geographic. The editors and Director of Photography do not look at unsolicited portfolios. Because there is a large investment behind each National Geographic article - including travel expenses and fees for the numerous personnel involved - we are conservative in choosing writers and photographers. Our editors continually review the published work of top journalists and invite those whose work

impresses them to send a portfolio. At this time, we have far more interested freelancers than we do assignments.

 

If this all sounds negative, I apologize. It is, however, a response dictated by a rather precise goal for the style of the magazine, coupled with the limited number of stories we are able to publish each year.

 

Thank you for your interest in the National Geographic Society and its work. I hope you will continue to enjoy the magazine.

Since National Geographic allows pictures taken with dual color filter to be published, I have lost my confidence in it.

I was very skeptical when I first saw the photograph of the Kingfisher in question a few months ago and I am glad that several experts took the time to analyze it. I also remember the previous thread in regard to the fake NG image of Yosemite. My concern now is that we all seem to be discussing these issues here without taking any further steps. Has any Photonet member written directly to NG asking them for an explanation? I believe that we should all do it and that we should not let NG to put these important issues to rest that easily. At least not before adding our humble contribution to the case.

Thank You for all the post.

The naturArt has tried to negotiate with the NG many times by E-mail first, and personally later (as You can read in the article)

 

It seems, that nobody else done the same (until now). I think most nature photographers are afraid to do the same, because they do not want to stand against the famous NG. But I never heard any other opinion, only that this photo is a fake nature photo.

 

After reading Mr Kenneth Brower's article in the "The Atlancic Online", I am sure, that we have to stop this type of "story-making" techniques...

 

Here is the mentioned article:

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/98may/photo.htm

 

Maybe Ligia has truth, and all we have to write E-mails to the NG to sign that the hungarian nature photographers are not alone with this opinion.

 

I am sure, that the NG is not capable to investigate all the pictures one by one, and the pressure is extreme high to be in the first line of magazines today. It is a normal behaviour to serve the readers with such a high quality articles, like we read in every magazines today.

 

I think the TRUE Nature Photographers (even the amateurs) has to help out the NG (and all of other magazines too) with opinions, feedbacks, letters. It is more and more easy today, when the E-mail is so easy to write.

Very impressed by the level of analysis given the photo. Seems like a job of hoodwinking a mag with a photo, somewhat similar to how an east coast newspaper recently was hoodwinked with a series of fabricated news stories. For the newspaper, it came down to a matter of beefing up their screening process... especially for the fabulously excellent stories. The editors are the gate keepers of fact.

 

This statement jumped out at me, "guarding the moral of nature photography" which I have an intuitive sense of, but am not sure of the exact definition or how it is interpreted by the general populace. How 'staged' can a photo be and still represent 'nature'? There are inevitably going to be grey areas, but this photo doesn't seem to exist within those grey boundaries.

For about 20 years I've felt that many of the shots that I have much admired in National Geographic were "staged."

 

The first time the thought came to my mind was Steve McCurry's cover photo of the man carrying the sewing machine thru the water. It looked posed. But that would not be documentary work.

 

Expressing my thoughts is not meant to be inflamatory, but I do point out my suspicions that I have seen others mention as well.

Let me first make clear that I find this hoax completely horrendous. However, I have sometimes been contemplating the inherent limitations of photographic illustrations. Maybe, I have thought, that for the purpose of illustrating a natural phenomenon that cannot technically be taken in one shot, it might be OK for a skilled naturalist to stage a shot or digitally combine several shots för the purpose of illustration. Of course labelling it as such! This article, however, points out that even if you stage your shot meticulously, there may always be some detail that just isn't authentic. For instance the age class and gender of the emerging may-fly in the example. So I have come to the conclusion that not even <I>illustrations</I> that are intended to show a 'realistic' situation should ever be staged, since most viewers will expect a photograph to be 'real', and you cannot be sure which part of a picture will be of interest to a particular viewer. After all, what's wrong with drawings anyway?

Just an example: Change the kingfisher for a baby elephant, what is hunting for the mayfly. Ok, flying with just two relatively small ears is not easy, but who knows...? The Jumbo Jet more heavy than a baby elephant, and it is able to fly is not it? The photos are always evidences.

;-)

 

The elephant not hunting? Hm... ok, if nobody seen until now, not means, that is not true. The science is changing every day. The photos are always evidences.

 

The elephant not able to catch the mayfly with its trunk? The trunk is a really versatile tool! The photos are always evidences.

 

The elephants are only living in Africa, and India? I have seen many of them in Europe too... Even during the winter. Paris, Wien, and Budapest have pretty nice zoo!

 

The picture was on the cover of NG? This is the true evidence is not it?

 

If a photo like this mentioned above, will be publish in the NG, we will believe, that a baby elephant hunting for mayflies over the Europian rivers?

Does anyone want about last 5 years worth of NGs ..lovingly preserved ? I have come to despise this magazine and so want to get rid of all of my issues. Please let me know.

Does not surprise me abour NG. They've been doing the same thing with the subject of evolution for years.