Monday, March 11, 2019

Wildebeests in Ndutu

I was riding in a jeep with the great photographer and film maker Todd Gustafson.  He envisioned this scene and had our driver go across that field and up to the ridge where we stopped, turned around and just looked down and across the valley with all those wildebeest coming through the trees to the watering hole in a zig zaggy way.  Oh what a scene it was. (You need to click the photo to see all those layers.)

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  1. Kitty Riley KonoMarch 14, 2019 at 2:29 PM

    This commentary is adapted from the article which has been taking the Photograph journals by storm.

    Everyone who is anyone in the world of Wildlife Photography** is weighing in on this topic.

    I was asked by my editor in chief to review all of the articles covering this new “grey” area and to distill the information as best as I could for those of you who are actually out in the field with your cameras and not obsessed with whether or not , at any given moment you are being acknowledged for whatever role you may have played in the capturing of an image by a fellow photographer.

    The titles of these articles include the following:

    WHEN CAN YOU CALL YOUR PHOTOGRAPH YOUR OWN

    AUTHENTICITY: REDEFINED IN THE WORLD OF WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHY

    JEALOUSY IN THE JUNGLE

    LUST BEHIND THE LENS

    THE WORLD OF ELITE PHOTOGRAPHY TRIPS : HOW MUCH OF WHAT YOU PAY MEANS YOU HAVE TO SUCK UP TO THE “BRAND”

    HOW MANY FUCKING YEARS DO YOU HAVE TO SPEND AS A RESPECTED, ACKNOWLEDGED, ADMIRED PHOTOGRAPHER OF WILDLIFE TO CLAIM IT

    PLAGIARISING THE POLAR BEAR

    SUCKING UP TO THE SALMON

    PIRACY IN THE PANTANAL

    GREED AMONG THE GECKOS

    The list goes on and on

    I have consumed thousands of words and opinions on this subject. I have conducted close to 100 interviews with highly respected men and women in the field.

    I could write my own 15,000 word article on what I have concluded but that would be unnecessary and boring.

    So I will write here what I deduced from my extensive research of this new phenomenon:

    If you are schlepping hundreds of pounds of equipment around the globe…

    If you have spent thousands..maybe millions of hours looking through the lens …

    If you have sat behind that lens…silent..waiting…for that one shot of an aphid..which is different from all of the thousand other shots of the aphid you have taken( not the same aphid, of course..I don’t think their life span is very long)

    If you have subjected yourself to the egos of those who consider themselves at the top of their game

    If you have shared a room with entitled, rich-from-not-earning-it assholes and listened to them whine about their aches and pains

    If you have spent hours on the toilet from eating like a local and not complained
    If you have secured the best guide you know of to get you to locations you would never be able to access on your own

    If that guide positions you, because he can, to take a jaw dropping, beyond awesome photograph of wildebeests surrounding a body of water ..which looks like only God could have put there….

    And you position your camera and take that photograph..

    IT IS YOURS…….
    And whether you acknowledge all of what went into getting you to that moment is YOURS to decide at that moment..

    But I think…
    The photo…
    Will speak for itself..

    Like people..

    NO TWO ARE ALIKE

    This commentary was written by wildlife enthusiast, Carol Jeanne Luise Scafuro

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