Here I’m going to give a tip that is a painful one for many of us conservation photographers; if you want to maximize your impact, photograph people. Yes that’s right, Rick, the guy many think can only photograph ducks, is telling you to photograph people.
Magazines are often looking to engage the reader in the article through the photographs and apparently many think humans can’t feel connected to a member of the species Anas acuta. Personally, I find this both sad and shocking. However, the fact remains that if you want to maximize the impact of your photography for conservation, you should probably also be photographing people doing the conservation work and enjoying the fruits of their labors. The latter are called “lifestyle” or “outdoor lifestyle” images, a genre that I myself am now pushing myself to get into deeper.
Another tip with lifestyle images, if you want to maximize the versatility of the images, make sure your models are wearing modern and stylish clothes. This increases the odds of them being useful for advertising as well as editorial.
You can see some of my work in this field in these galleries; lifestyle and conservation.
Tags: Conservation, lifestyle, people, photography, tips
I spent some time in your blog and find lots of useful posts. I am so impressed with the way you present your perspectives and ideas. I’ve added you to my firefox bookmarks and will come back for updates regularly. Thank you!
Hmmm…very good to know, there were definitely two or three items which I had not thought of before.