Saving the planet one image at a time

For conservation photographers, getting trapped in quicksand, attacked by rhinos, charged by a polar bear, caught in sandstorms, stuck in snowstorms or marooned on a piece of ice floating out to sea, is sometimes a typical workday for some. Amy Westerway reports on just what it is that makes these intrepid and dedicated photographers tick.

There’s probably not a single photographer that has not heard the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, but for conservation photographers who frequently risk life and limb, the power of the image to convey the story and get the message out there is paramount. Conservation photographers provide evidence of the impact humans are having on the delicate balance for survival in many areas of the world, helping to change peoples’ views and create global awareness by producing images with the motive to bring about change.

The impact that humans are having on the environment and our planet is undeniable. And the role of dedicated professional photographers is unquestionable in bringing the message to the masses. Conservation photographers document these fragile habitats and the animals that need them to survive, while capturing the beauty of a vanishing spirit. While anyone with money can buy camera equipment and travel, it takes photographic skill, environmental awareness and scientific comprehension to create images that tell a story and create empathy with the sense of urgency needed to make people take action and inspire change.

Life on the outskirts

Conservation photographers will frequently travel to some of the most remote locations on the planet, and reaching these can be a mission in itself. So how do these photographers prepare themselves for the dangers that may await them?

US-based Sebastian Copeland has shot advertising, fashion, celebrities and album covers, but his true passion is the environment. Using photography as a medium for activism, his work, highlighting a number of environmental issues, has been seen on CNN’s Larry King Live, ABC, ESPN and NPR, and in National Geographic, Vanity Fair, USA Today and Elle, amongst others. Over the last decade, he has travelled extensively through the Polar Regions to document and photograph the changing environment. “Due to the very specific context of my work, danger has often been a close travelling companion but it is measured against preparedness,” Copeland says.

For Copeland, danger is a relative term. “I don’t have a death wish, and place great value on my safety. Let’s just say that I have thanked my lucky star on a few occasions,” he says. Just some of Copeland’s experiences involve being charged by a polar bear while alone on the sea ice, he fell through ice on his way to the North Pole in -35°C conditions, was stuck in a tent in hurricane-strength winds for seven days in Greenland, battled with broken ribs on an eighty-day expedition in Antarctica and got trapped on a piece of ice drifting out to sea.

Copeland’s conservation photography and film skills have raised awareness about various endangered environments. His award-winning documentary Into the Cold sends a message about the vanishing polar ice caps and in 2007, Sebastian was named the International Photographer Award’s Professional Photographer of the Year in the book category for his first book Antarctica: The Global Warning. “Photographing animals is the exploration of another world: it is always exotic. Using an artistic tool to communicate important ideas became, for me, a moral imperative. My brand of advocacy is to help people fall in love with their world in order to protect it, because we save what we love,” Copeland says.

The importance of conservation photography is becoming more evident in the need for visuals to verify written observations, especially given that time is not a luxury afforded to some of the issues. However, for those keen to get into this line of work, if money is your primary motivation then you might want to consider another speciality. “Conservation photography is a passion project. It is a calling,” Copeland says. “This is not something that you do for financial compensation, and to some extent, it is not for recognition either. The reward is, first and foremost, a personal one. When science becomes too esoteric and data overwhelming, photography can bridge the gap with our emotions and instantly communicate a concept because an iconic photograph has potentially deep social implications,” says Copeland.

German-born Thorsten Milse has been shooting wildlife with a strong focus on conservation and endangered species since 1990. His conservation photography has led to numerous successes. He is a Canon Ambassador, has won BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year in the Animal Behaviour category, and his images have been published around the world. Like Copeland, he has also found himself in some challenging situations, including being caught in more than a handful of snow and sandstorms. Milse’s photographs raise awareness about animals in need of our protection, such as polar bears and other animals that are struggling to adapt to our changing planet. And he’s travelled all around the globe, from the Poles to Africa, Asia, Australia and the Americas in the process.

Milse’s first conservation project focused on polar bears endangered through global warming. Captivated by a very intimate moment with a polar bear and her young cub, this led to his first big story in Geo (Germany) and a book about young polar bears, Little Polar Bears. Milse is particularly forthright about his drive and motivation. “I wanted to do something to protect endangered species,” he says. “There is way too little done for conservation and in many ways there is more said in one photo than in a thousand words,” Milse says. “Society needs to see photos of wild animals and national parks to recognise what needs to be protected,” Milse says. “Respect for nature gets lost because it is easy to believe all we need can be saved in a zoo.”

Revealing the soul

For over two decades, Michael Hall had a successful commercial career travelling the world photographing for major international companies. In 2006, he was selected as Photographer of the Year by the Federation of European Photographers. However, he began to feel increasingly uneasy and felt his work, and photography as a whole, was being debased and sullied by the corporate and commercial world. “My role was to give a face to these corporates, making them look honest, sincere, happy, good-natured and worldly, when really many of them are the very reason humanity finds itself in such a predicament. We’re burning up the world and we each need to do our part to turn this around,” Hall says.

Following a near fatal cycling accident with a semi-trailer in 2007, during a life-changing period of recovery and reflection, Hall was inspired to start his climate change project. Wanting to shoot something of more substance and put his talents and energy toward a greater good, Hall turned his talents to conservation. Hall has spent the past seven years documenting climate change and environmental degradation throughout the world. So far, he has covered a multitude of issues including deforestation in Borneo and Tasmania, drought in Australia and North Africa, ice melt in Iceland, Greenland and Svalbard, coal-fired power stations in Australia, Poland, the USA and China, flood, drought, over-population, water scarcity and the shifting of the climate in India and Bangladesh, amongst other things.

Michael Hall’s photographs capture the soul of his subject, raising awareness of various plights around the world. He was awarded The Climate Institute’s inaugural Creative Fellowship to allow him to continue a long-term project on climate change and put a human face on the risks and opportunities associated with it. This partnership helps him finance his greater ambition of documenting climate change throughout the world in order to shed more light on the subject. Once complete, the project aims to produce 300 images captured in 40 international destinations.

Images with purpose

Wildlife and conservation photography have numerous similarities, however the difference is what makes conservation photography so important; its purpose. Through purpose-driven images, people can change a situation from hopeless to hopeful. Ansel Adams and William Jackson, for example, were a couple of the first American environmental photographers whose photographs of Yellowstone and Yosemite Valley convinced the US Congress to establish the first national park, Yellowstone National Park, in 1872.

Steve Winter is a photojournalist who believes in telling the truth through his work, capturing the story and the voice of the animals whose plight would otherwise be shrouded in silence. “Many wildlife photographers make the ecosystem these animals live in look like Shangri-La, because they don’t bother to turn around 180 degrees and show a giant mine behind them or the deforested land. It’s our job to tell the whole story, and not just take pretty pictures of animals,” Winter says.

Winter’s passion has gotten him into some strange situations. “I’ve been attacked by rhinos in India, stalked by jaguars in Brazil, charged by an 11-foot grizzly in Siberia, trapped in quicksand in the world’s largest tiger reserve in Myanmar and slept in a tent for six months at -40 below zero tracking snow leopards. I’ve also visited isolated villages where residents had never before seen a blonde foreigner, let alone a camera,” Winter says.

In 1996, during an assignment for National Geographic, in his small shack on a mountain in Guatemala, Winter was visited by a jaguar while asleep. This mystical encounter led him to create a piece on jaguars and fired his love for big cats. Conditions are not often ideal for conservation photographers, and given some of Winter’s subjects of choice, this is compounded especially when the animals he’s trying to photograph have a shy disposition. During his six months in -40 degrees tracking snow leopards, Winter used camera traps with a DSLR and infrared beam to capture his amazing images.

In 2008, Winter won the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year for his photo Snowstorm Leopard. No stranger to some of the most prestigious accolades around, he has also received the POYi Global Vision Award (twice), 2012 BBC Wildlife Photojournalist of the Year and 1st Prize Nature story from World Press Photo in 2008. Many of these were beyond his wildest dreams. “I feel very lucky because this is the life I dreamed of as a child growing up in rural Indiana: travelling the world as a photographer for National Geographic Magazine,” he says.

Winter is devoted to saving the world’s cats and is director of media for Panthera, an organisation that aims to protect the world’s 37 wild cat species from human and environmental threats. He harnesses his passion in his photography and inspires people to take notice of the many plights they face. “I feel we have a great responsibility to not only show and excite the readers about the natural world, but also its fascinating people and cultures to give people a reason to care,” says Winter.

Making a difference

Every choice we make as individuals can have a rippling effect on our environment. And no one knows this better then Paul Hilton. “Conservation has been close to my heart my whole life. After living in Asia for many years and understanding how humans interact with the environment, I now realise that for the most part, people really don’t understand that the choices they make on a daily basis have a huge impact on the world and its wildlife,” Hilton says.

In 2009, Hilton became a member of the prestigious International League of Conservation Photographers, an organisation dedicated to furthering environmental and cultural conservation through ethical photography. His first book, Man & Shark, which highlights the global shark-finning industry, was released in 2010. Hilton’s images prove that a strong image can be a powerful tool. He says it “breaks down language barriers and travels across cultures, all without a single word being spoken.” 

For over twelve years, Hilton has worked as a conservation photographer, devoting his time to exposing barbaric practices such as the treatment of bears in the Chinese bear bile farms and highlighting other significant issues including the shark-fin trade and the issue of palm oil, amongst others. Many of the bear bile farms have been shut down as a result of the images he has produced.

It was in 2004 that Hilton first started following the shark-fin industry. Back then he says people simply did not understand the extent of the issue or the scale of the problem. “I have been following the shark-fin trade across the globe; a tradition that left sharks sitting on the bottom of the ocean with no fins, all for a bowl of soup. And the campaign has huge public support,” Hilton says. “At Dong Gang Fish Market in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, they routinely process thousands of frozen shark fins a day to service the growing international demand for shark-fin soup,” Hilton says. “Once a delicacy, the dish is increasingly popular with China’s growing middle class, and the statistics are grim with up to 100 million sharks killed each year.” Clearly, this figure is both frightening and disturbing, and it’s only though the efforts by people like Hilton that the true extent of tragedy can be brought to attention of the broader public. In 2012, his work on the shark-fin industry was recognised and awarded in the Nature category of the World Press Photo.

Where to now?

When words fail, photographs fill the spaces bringing clarity and awareness. Conservation photography creates a bridge over the ignorant void that eludes society. As the ice caps dissolve and the condition of the world’s environment continues to decline, conservation photographers have never been more significant during this rapid change as they bear witness to the plight of the earth and its inhabitants. “It’s time we all took a deep breath and stopped to think of the world we will be leaving behind if we continue on our current destructive path. Collectively we need to realise this gift of life we have been granted is not only about us, but also about those who will come after us. The change we require must come from us as individuals. We must rise above the powers that be and fight for our right for a better, cleaner, more sustainable planet,” Hall says.

CONTACTS

Sebastian Copeland sebastiancopelandadventures.com www.intothecold.org
Michael Hall www.michaelhall.net; http://www.climateinstitute.org.au/verve/_resources/Tragic_Beauty.pdf
Paul Hilton: www.paulhiltonphotography.com; www.ilcp.com
Thorsten Milse: www.wildlifephotography.de
Steve Winter: stevewinterphoto.com; www.panthera.org