Is staging, live baiting and sedating animals in wildlife photography a common practice?

Question

I am not a wildlife photographer and frankly I have little interest in wildlife photography outside of the birds and squirrels outside of my kitchen window. I do however enjoy looking at some of the many great wildlife photos out there. I have recently came across a comment by someone on a travel photography blog questioning the ethics of many wildlife photos on 500px namely owl photos and photos of skittish bugs that "appear unusually cooperative". This person speaks of live baiting owls to get otherwise impossible shots (in-flight/ flying directly at the photographer/ landing) and refrigerating bugs or placing them in various substances. This person has called such practices unethical, disrespectful to the animal, cruel...

I always tend to associate animal cruelty and unethical treatment of animals with the pharmaceutical and such industries but it never occurred to me that a wildlife photographer, one who is in the business of capturing the essence of animals in the wild, could possibly be associated with such things...

Then I was thinking about all the unbelievable animal shots (not only owls and insects) on 500px and elsewhere and begun to wonder whether this is a normal and I was just unaware? Forgive my ignorance but do wildlife photographers often stage shots using bating, live baiting and sedation? Is this a common practice?

Edit: I just punched a few other things into Google and it seems that renting wild animals for photo-shoots is also not uncommon.

Asked by Jakub

Answer

This addresses only my opinion on one less-central aspect of the question:

I agree that the more extreme forms of what you describe are unethical or immoral.
As well as avoiding mistreatment of the target animal, I would personally never use live-bait for anything, but that's a personal choice and many would be happy to do so.

But I don't see too much wrong with using food as a bait or attractant. This may be meat (bits of dead animals) for Owls or Falcons and bread or grain for sparrows or whatever. The point is that the ethics of the treatment of the target animal and the ethics of the treatment of the bait can be separaed. In my case I'd be happy to use meat which met my standards for treatment but a vegetarian or Vegan may be horrified at that choice.

The photo below is not presented for any technical merit (you just TRY and get a good photo of the about fastest bird on earth :-) ) but because of its relevant here.

This is a NZ Falcon. It lives in a specialist raptor rescue center - birds arrive in damaged condition and stay long enough to get them back to a point where they will probably survive in the wild. This bird is free to do what it chooses every single time they release it - which is frequently. Even when "in captivity" NZ Falcons live on the very very edge of being always genuinely wild. A week or so on the loose and it will not come back. But when fed and cared for it will return reliably.

This one is heading for me not because of my gastronomic attractiveness but because a young lady (one of only 7 qualified falconers in the country) is standing behind me with an unknown piece of dead animal on her gauntlet and I'm an incidental in its path.

Is this ethical? I'd find it hard to see it wasn't (ignoring for now arguments re feeding bits of one animal to keep the latter alive). Is this photo (or any better one that others may manage in the circumstances) less "real" due to the circumstances? [Shame about the fence - I left it in here but it's edited out in other versions]. And, yes, I'd say it's less real - and in the no-fence versions I know the circumstances, even though others may not. If wholly wild it would probably have gone and found a live rabbit that wasn't lurking just behind me.

How far is it acceptable to extend this treatment? of bird or environment. I could set up a hide with non live bait. These Falcons come to a lure swung in circles at speed by their handlers - emulating a live animal. Enough :-)

500mm f/8 Minolta mirror lens (hence the bad bokeh).
Minolta 7D, 1/750s, ISO 800, f8.

Answered by Russell McMahon

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Is photomontage photography?

Question

I frequent 500px and enjoy viewing and voting the photos there. I thought I was mostly looking at photography on this site but it seems that my eyes were fooled more then a few times. (And this is not specific to 500px but other Photography sites as well) I am not talking about obvious "traditional" photomontage but rather images that almost seem to pose to be "real" photos.

Personally, I feel a bit tricked by these "photos" especially when seeing all the other users' comments who obviously think they are seeing "photography". (I am deliberately not linking specific photos) Doesn't this sort of thing belong to digital art or even digital rendering along the lines of Povray?

As for 500px, I was under an assumption that this site is for photography. To quote a few references; "500px.com: World's Best Photographs" and "500px is Photography"

I don't doubt that some photomontage is art but does photomontage belong in photography?

Asked by Jakub

Answer

Ah, I see. This is one of those "where do you draw the line" things, isn't it? Is it still photography if you manipulate contrast or colour balance? Dodge or burn? Retouch complexions? Do HDR? Stitch panoramas? That's not being true to the negative, so to speak, either. How about when you use artificial lighting? Is that cheating? How much does the technique of creating an image using photographic processes have to be limited before it's "pure enough" for everybody?

Compositing is almost as old as photography itself. And much of it was originally done in-camera, since direct-to-image processes (such as Daguerreotypy) were technically far superior to negative processes for many years. Much of the photographic work I've done over the years has involved compositing, either in the darkroom or more recently in the computer. (Photoshop and its kin are a whole lot easier than stripping, lithing and masking, but it's not more inherently evil.) That can involve setting up a number of shots at different scales with the same apparent perspective and lighting (from miniatures to human models to grand landscapes), and if you think there's no photography involved in something like that just because it wasn't done as a single exposure in-camera, you're out of your gourd.

These days, I shoot mostly headshots and portraiture pro bono. A lot of what I do is in unpleasant environments (particularly in long-term care hospital facilities), and the object of my game is not to document end-of-life conditions, but to leave families with the best possible memories when the inevitable day arrives. (That's one of the reasons why I'm unlikely to post images here very often—what I do, when I can do it, is rather intimate and somewhat invasive, and not for public gawking.) Is what I do less photographic because I do background replacements and clean up the ravages (and accessories) of disease and old age? I don't lie; I selectively withhold the more brutal aspects of the truth. As far as I'm concerned, what I'm doing is precisely the difference between being a photographer and operating a camera.

Your opinion of both my older commercial work and my current charitable work as photography may be different from mine. That's okay. There's room for a lot of differing opinions in this world. But I've always been convinced that it's the ability to create art with a camera rather than merely record what's there that makes the difference between a creative photographer and a technician.

(jrista posted an answer while I was typing that is going to get my vote. I just needed to vent a little bit of spleen.)

Answered by Stan Rogers

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Is it acceptable in professional photography to accept a meal from the client during a paid event?

Question

On 4-5 hour long assignments shooting events such as anniversaries/weddings/birthdays etc.. the clients have asked me to help myself to lunch/dinner. Is acceptable to do that or will it look completely unprofessional?

Answer

Yes it is. In fact, I've seen many photographer contracts for a wedding explicitly call out whether or not the photographer will be getting a meal.

I've read on some forums that some photographers require a meal, but I think it's in better to taste to make it an "option" on the contract.

If the client said it was okay, then it's okay. Now, of course you want to make sure you do your best to eat quickly, make sure you don't disturb guests and ensure you don't miss any important shots.

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Can photographs from a client shoot, but not accepted by them, be used for stock photography?

Question

I have a number of photographs from a recent client shoot that they don't wish to use, could these be sold by myself as stock photography? For that matter, would it be considered to be ethical to do so?

Answer

As for the legal issues, the crux of the matter is the model release. All of the reputable micro-stock websites that I've looked into (Shutter Stock, iStockPhoto, Fotolia, etc.) are going to require a model release if your client is in any way recognizable. Traditional stock agencies will have similar requirements. Even if your existing contract includes a line regarding re-use of images (i.e. in your portfolio, on your website), I doubt that a stock company would accept this kind of document as a "release." If the client does sign a model release, then they have explicitly given you permission to use the photos and you should have no legal problems in re-using the photos.

One potential legal issue, though, could come up with respect to the definition of "consideration received." This is a standard phrased used in the beginning of most model releases, because for the contract to be valid the "model" (in this case your client) must receive something of value from you in return for your rights to re-sell the images. If the client is paying you to take his/her pictures, then you may have a tough time selling to a court that the client received anything of value. Usually this would be something like money (if you pay a model) or photographic services (if you do a trade for shoot with a model).

Ethically, I agree with most of the other answers that you should pass it by the client or at least mention the fact that you'll be re-using images for stock photography. Just because a client isn't going to use the photo doesn't mean it's a bad photo or represents the person in a bad light. As long as you sell "reject" photos that aren't embarrassing, compromising, or the like, then I wouldn't have any ethical problems with it.

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