{"id":5312,"date":"2010-04-18T15:42:58","date_gmt":"2010-04-18T22:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thefreequark.com\/?p=5312"},"modified":"2010-04-18T15:42:58","modified_gmt":"2010-04-18T22:42:58","slug":"of-towhees-tripods-and-trust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/?p=5312","title":{"rendered":"Of Towhees, Tripods and Trust"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Male<\/a><\/p>\n

I’m extra cautious out there as a photographing fool. I feel I owe the animals my respect when they allow me into their inner sanctum to photograph them. Knowing their very lives depend on wariness toward me, I do not take it lightly when a wild animal allows me the privilege of documenting her life and behavior. I tread slowly, carefully and don’t linger if I see that my presence is causing any danger or distress. I wrote a bit about this in a post last year: Wildlife and Nature Photography Ethics<\/a>. <\/p>\n

When people lure animals, domestic or wild, into a trusting relationship of interaction, usually through appealing to their primary need for food — and then choose to harm them — to me, that’s one of the least noble expressions of human choice. It’s a betrayal of an implied trust. <\/p>\n

In photography, this issue comes up time and again in terms of how humans treat or habituate wild animals. And how the behavior of the photographer affects the short-term or long-term well-being of the wild subject. There are some recognized standards, like those applied by the North American Nature Photography Association<\/a>. As with anything there’s also some contention over how these guidelines apply to each individual situation. <\/p>\n

Audubon Magazine recently ran a piece on this subject, entitled Picture Perfect<\/a>. It’s definitely worth a read. The article addresses the game farms used for various wildlife shots, including those pristine closeups you often see in wildlife publications and hunting magazines. <\/p>\n

The towhee photo gallery below plays into the issue of trust since I shot these images during a highly vulnerable time for birds: bath time<\/a>. I was meandering by a shallow creek and saw this Spotted Towhee<\/a> splashing around. <\/p>\n

If Spotted Towhees had middle names, they’d all be Spotted “Elusive” Towhee or Spotted “Furtive” Towhee.<\/i><\/p>\n

The towhee’s first, natural reaction was to scoot back into the shrubs. Normally, I’d move back at this point and give the bird a bit of space to do his thing. But before I could, he gave me the benefit of the doubt and hopped back into his bathing pool for some splashes. As these photos attest, his eye was on me the entire time. I sat at a distance — my 300mm 4\/3 lens is actually an effective 600mm (35mm equivalent). And once I grabbed a few shots, I let him take the rest of his bath in peace. <\/p>\n

Anyone who’s out there on the trails, with a camera, knows these moments happen. They are precious beyond description and I’d go so far as to say transcendent. Meeting the eyes of a deer in the scrub . . . coming upon a Killdeer<\/a> nest with a parent so protective she’ll fake her own disability to lure you away from the nest . . . catching a mother opossum by surprise, toting her young in the dusky quiet . . . in all of those moments, the animal has a split second to contemplate her next move, to assess my danger as a human. I’m not perfect in my behavior. I muck up. But I do think it’s important to recognize intent . . . that in all of those moments, I have a choice about how I treat that vulnerability. I choose not to take advantage of that trust.<\/p>\n

\"Male<\/a>

Spotted Towhee Bathing in Creek - \u00a9ingridtaylar<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Spotted<\/a>

Spotted Towhee in Creek - \u00a9ingridtaylar<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Spotted<\/a>

Male Spotted Towhee in Bath - \u00a9ingridtaylar<\/p><\/div>
\n

\"Spotted<\/a>

Bathing Towhee - \u00a9ingridtaylar<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m extra cautious out there as a photographing fool. I feel I owe the animals my respect when they allow me into their inner sanctum to photograph them …<\/p>\n

[read the full post …]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[432],"class_list":["post-5312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","category-uncategorized","tag-towhees"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ingridtaylar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}