Wildlife and retouching

I come from a background of truth. As a former picture editor at a wildlife picture library, I was only interested in images that were true and correct in the strictest sense of the word.

But where is the world going? More and more I see wildlife images that are retouched. By retouched, I don’t mean a dust spot cloned out, I mean reality altered – extra animals put in, skies dropped in, moons added, sun’s added etc.  This makes my blood boil (especially when it is passed off as real) but I’m beginning to wonder if, from a professional point of view, I’m a dinosaur. I mean it’s everywhere these days.

As a professional, you have to put food on the table. The bottom line, in a business sense, is that you have to sell your pictures. And where do the biggest sales come from? It’s certainly not any of the places that require veracity in images – BBC wildlife Magazine? The pay isn’t great at all. Nat Geo? Don’t know what the pay is, but it only really applies to a handful of photographers. Geographical? Africa Geographic? Wanderlust? the list goes on, but none of them pay the sort of rates you need to survive. Picture libraries are failing as well. I was chatting to a friend that submits images to picture libraries (Dave Courtenay) and he was saying the cheques coming through from one of his agencies hardly warranted the cost of posting a DVD over. Stock libraries are heading down the pan and ever more the world is heading to the scourge of the microstock library – those places that devalue the work of photographers and make it ever harder to make any money in this business. 

How about the competitions like BBC wildlife? Well, if you want to enter then of course, retouching is out. And for sure winning the WPOY is about as good as it gets for a wildlife photographer, but from a business point of view, you can’t build a business or put food on the table trying to win competitions. 

The real money comes from advertising. And an advertising client couldn’t give two hoots about whether the image is biologically true or not. All they care about is whether the image will help them sell their product. And to do that, it needs to grab the attention. Part of the problem is us – we are so visually aware and we see so many images on a daily basis, that only the most captivating of images will hold the attention for more than a second. 

So what does this mean? Am I condoning serious retouching for wildlife pictures? I don’t know. I really don’t. I can see why people are doing it. Clearly they need to make money and provide for the family. And you can even argue that by selling more pictures for more money they can afford to go to more places and bring back more pictures highlighting the plight of wildlife around the world and therefore help preserve wildlife. But is that really a defense? Do they really do this? 

Where is it going to end? We’re already seeing a backlash in advertising of beauty products where models are made to look perfect which has a negative impact on young kids growing up. But who really does a heavily retouched wildlife image impact? I’d argue that it ruins the beauty of nature and will misinform those not lucky enough to have seen these sights for themselves – how many people actually believe if they go dolphin watching they too will get to see two dolphins jumping in perfect unison over a settings sun? Seriously? 

I don’t have the answers. I really wish I did, but I think it’s more than I can hope to achieve on my own. I’d like to see a return to true wildlife pictures and a move away from heavy retouching (Adobe won’t like me for that!) but I’m not sure exactly how I see that happening. 

Maybe we all need to sit back and take pleasure in the simple, true beauty of nature rather than having to be subjected to permanently perfect worlds. A little Wabi Sabi (you can go google that) might just be the answer. 

Hit up the comments with your thoughts.