A Challenge for All the Beautiful People

A brief departure today from photography and art (don't worry, this will eventually come back to the topic). Yesterday, I was reflecting on some of the aspects of my personality that probably could stand some improvement (trifling things, really *wink*), and realized that there are parts of me that I can choose to change and others that may always be there, like it or not. Likewise, I will never have the body of a seasoned athlete or Bruce Lee, because I have always been on the bigger side and always will be. I've gone on some pretty extreme diets, a couple of them borderline starvation, and as an adult have only gotten close to my supposed "ideal" weight/BMI once, at the end of Navy boot camp where I skipped a lot of meals, and felt like crap for several months afterwards. The doctors have told me for years that based on their little chart, someone my height should be between 140 and 180 pounds, which I haven't weighed since I was about twelve. So I will never be described as "svelte," but I can choose to love the body I'm in and strive to be healthier, rather than thinner or lighter. I can choose to be stronger and more capable, rather than better looking.

There are many things in our lives over which we have no control. We are pulled into this world bloodied and squawling, with no choice or say in the matter. We grow old and eventually die, and nothing we do to try to prevent it will truly stave off the effects of time beyond our allotted tenure. In this life, we will feel pain, both physical and emotional, and that is also inevitable - even if we strive to live in a bubble, an island among men, someone will still find a way to hurt us eventually. Our bodies change, break down, slow down, malfunction, and get sick more often as we get older, because of wear and tear, genetic predispositions, and the effects of the our modern world. These are things we generally cannot change.

There are things we can do something about, as well. We control our diets -- except in a few rare and exceptional cases, no one is cramming those cheeseburgers down our gullets except ourselves. We control our exercise regimens -- even the rich folks who have personal trainers to chase after them and make them exercise ultimately had to hire these people to keep them honest and exercise regularly, and that was the choice, to give that control to someone else. We have a choice of lifestyle -- to smoke or not to smoke? one more drink for the road or let's keep it to a minimum? sex with protection or without? These are all choices we can make that affect our health, longevity, and to one extent or another, our looks as well.

There have always been ascetics among us, who say, "The world is full of horrible things and life is full of pain. It's not worth fighting against it; just give up and accept that we're going to lose our youth, that life is short and violent and will end badly for every one of us." Nihilism has never been my thing, and we will never accomplish anything in life if we just give up and fail to strive for something better, to achieve our goals and become better for the effort. On the flip side of the coin, there is only so much energy one can expend fighting what is truly inevitable -- running every day and eating nothing but bran and Greek yogurt will not prevent you from growing old and dying one day, and the harder you work to prevent the inevitable, the shorter and less fulfilling your life will probably be.

So what is a reasonable person to do about the things we cannot change? Do not fight them, but do not let them define you. Accept them as truths, but not as the entirety of your reality. Many people moan about how they're not as _____ as they used to be, and no matter how hard they try, they can't seem to get back to _______ like they were in high school. These people miss the point -- if you didn't accept the changes that came in your life, move onwards and grow from them, then that point in your history upon which you dwell will truly be the apex of your existence, and everything from that point is a downward slide into oblivion. Rather, if you acknowledge that yes, you were indeed a "10" back in your high school or college years, and accept the truth that you've definitely aged since then, and gravity has indeed taken some toll upon you, then you have the opportunity to view yourself in a new light, as you are now. You may have been a "10" once, but now you're an "11," by virtue of all the things you've learned since then and all the things you've become -- you know what's truly important, now.

So when you look in the mirror in the morning, and see the face of experience looking back at you, don't cry over the loss of your youth -- celebrate your maturity. You're finally ripe now! You EARNED those laugh lines. You have more curves because you've sanded off all the rough edges. You look different because you ARE different: better! There's a REASON the kids are supposed to resepct you! Beauty is indeed more than skin deep, and your beauty is the sum of your entire being, not just the outward-facing shell. When you plan your diet and exercise regimen, therefore, don't just think about how it's going to make your butt look or whether it will give you impressive pecs, but whether it will make you healthier and happier. Do it as much (if not more) because it will help you continue playing the game called life for longer and as a more active participant than because someone says you're supposed to be a certain weight or shape or size. Love the skin you're in, take care of it, and let the critics be damned.

As for your looks, focus on the positive. What do you LOVE about yourself? Learning to appreciate how beautiful you are right now is not about lowering your standards or becoming blind to your imperfections, but rather changing the perspective from which you view yourself. As a photographer (see? told you I'd get back around to it), I can make the hottest woman in the world look frumpy through my choice of lens, exposure, backdrop and camera angle (trust me... I've done it) Learn to love the skin you're in, and you'll find it's much easier to love who's in that skin (wow, had to read that a few times to make sure it made sense... but it does)

I want you to go look at yourself in the mirror, right now. I'll wait right here. Take a really good look, and I want you to say to yourself, "I _AM_ beautiful, dammit. And I _DO_ look good naked." Yes, you too, men -- because beauty is a part of your whole being, you can be beautiful and still be masculine, so shut up and play along. If someone pays you a compliment on your looks from now on, accept it graciously. I don't want to hear anyone say, "Oh, no, I've put on some weight and I've never been happy with my nose or my chin, and my boobs are saggy and and and and," because that person isn't focusing on the positive and hasn't learned to love the skin they're in, and if you argue long enough with people who compliment you, they'll stop complimenting you, which only reinforces your negative view of yourself.

It's hard to do, I know -- we're our own worst critics, and it's easy to get down on yourself for those times you went back for seconds at dinner, or decided to share in the doughnuts at the Monday strategy meeting, or chose to skip the gym one day or another because you just didn't feel like it, and point to those choices as the reason we don't have the body we want. It doesn't feel so bad when you learn to WANT the body you've GOT, and just want to make it better. It actually helps you work toward your diet and exercise goals, ironically enough -- if you love your body, you want to take better care of it, right? and are less likely to feel too bad if you fall off the wagon once or twice. If it helps, ask your family and friends -- what do they appreciate about your body? Your significant other should be able to list some things they like about you -- why are they still attracted to you? (they already know they need to get this question right!) Sometimes, you need an outside observer to point out the things you're doing right, because you get so focused on fixing what you perceive to be wrong about yourself.

That's where I come in. If you want more proof that you are beautiful and deserve to love the skin you're in, give me a call and schedule a session in my studio. I'll show you photographic evidence that you're a lot better looking than you think. My job isn't about making you look better than you really are, it's showing you exactly how good you already look. I like to think that's why the raw, un-Photoshopped images are referred to as "proofs:" they're proof of the beauty that graced my studio on the day of your shoot. Don't believe me? Come in and prove me wrong. I double-dog dare ya!

I'd like to point y'all over to Crista Meola's blog, where she has a fantastic interview with Katherine Roll, a curvy model who has overcome a lot of societal bias in her career due to her size and the perception of beauty in America. Her confidence and celebration of her body just the way it is is quite inspiring!

http://christameola.com/blog/boudoir/a-curvy-conversation

Lessons learned... and rocked!

Super jazzed about last weekend's boudoir shoot with the lovely Miss Annie out east, and the rest of the weekend cruising the Palouse looking for ghost towns and abandoned buildings. I've been busily editing photos, and reflecting on the whole experience, and as I mentioned in my last post, trying to focus on the things I did right rather than dwell on what could have gone better. Learn from newbie mistakes and move on to better things! That's today's take-away.

Before I get to a sampling of my favorite shots from the session, I'll tease you a little longer by discussing the things I learned, in a more-or-less chronological order.

1) Google Maps will get you reasonably close to your destination, but you should never implicitly trust it to find you the quickest or most direct route... several times, I followed "Go south on I-195 for four miles, turn right on side road X. After six miles, turn left on road Y, 3.7 miles. Slight right, becomes road z, 10 miles and merge onto I-195 south." Wait a minute.... didn't... wait.. what?

1.5) By the way, very, very, rarely, Google Maps will try to kill you. If it's springtime, and Google Maps insists you take an unimproved county road right after a rainfall, JUST. SAY. NO. Especially if you're driving a 2000 Saturn SC3 coupe. You will not make it to your next stop on time. Just saying.

2) When you choose to do something a little sketchy, say like advertise on Craigslist asking for boudoir photo volunteers and offering no session fee and five free prints in exchange for their time, you'll probably get weirdos (there are a lot of them out there) and more likely no responses at all. If you happen to post your ad on April 1, you'll get even fewer responses as you might like. Didn't even think of that until Annie pointed it out to me and said she almost didn't respond to my ad. Oops.

3) During any sort of model shoot, your model is obviously the prime focus of any shot, but the background is also important; if there's a lot of other stuff in the background, it can distract a viewer from the star of the show. So if you're using backdrops to cover up the background, make sure the backdrops actually extend out to fill the frame. Took a lot of shots where you can see the stands holding up the backdrop, or it only covered one side of the frame because of the angle I was shooting from (the shoot was in her home, so I was constrained by the size and geometry of the rooms we were in). Yes, with some effort, you can Photoshop out distracting elements, but if you don't HAVE to, it can save you hours of work (and if you don't like having to paint in a background at the pixel level, getting it to show through between individual hairs is a nightmare, especially if you don't do photo retouching regularly)

4) It's best to work with makeup artists and stylists that you already know, rather than calling one up out of the blue. Asking a complete stranger to show up at a client's house (which, being a  split-level rental just off of the U. of Idaho campus, was two potted plants and a working doorbell away from being eligible for my abandoned houses shoot the next day) seems kind of sketchy. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank Heather from Southern Glow Company for her bravery and for an awesome job on Annie's makeup, and I hope the next time we work together, it'll be less creepy *grin*

5) Be flexible! Turns out some of my favorite shots resulted from a moment of panic when I ran out of ideas and then grabbed a prop off the mantlepiece or shelf and threw it into the mix. When your model isn't just standing there posing but is instead interacting with something, it makes the shoot much more interesting -- action is always more interesting to watch, so get your model moving! It may seem silly at the time, but the act of moving about takes the model's focus off of you and onto what she's doing, and makes the shot more kinetic -- if she's jumping into the air, for instance, her hair will increase in volume due to the momentary release from gravity's effect. Even just having your model toss a pillow into the air and catch it can make for visually interesting moments.

Okay, fine, you want to see pictures. I'm not done editing the ghost town photos yet, so I'll post those in another blog, but you wanted to see the boudoir shots anyway, right?

 

 

 

Once again, thanks to Annie B. for stepping up and giving me a chance to refine my art! I had a blast, and from all accounts, she did too! (Just got a nice email saying if I come out to Eastern Washington again, she'd like to do another shoot with me.. and maybe pay me this time! Doesn't get better than that!)

Ruminations on Beauty

A number of factors have come together recently that have given me a brief moment of clarity. Hopefully, I won't muddy things up too badly in my attempt at putting this experience into words.

Over the past year, the soap and beauty product company Dove has been leading a campaign called Real Beauty, in which they discuss aspects of how our culture  has created and fostered an artificial and generally unattainable ideal when it comes to how women "should" look. The most recent was rather poignant for me, called "Real Beauty Sketches." Briefly, women were seated next to an FBI forensic sketch artist, separated by a curtain, and asked to describe themselves as accurately as they could. Then, a stranger would be brought in and asked to describe that same woman after having met her briefly before the sitting. When confronted with the two sketches side-by-side, many women discovered that the face staring back at them from the left side of the board -- representing how they saw themselves -- looked heavier, sadder or angrier, and generally less attractive than the sketch drawn from the recollections of a stranger. (To see the video, click here: http://youtu.be/XpaOjMXyJGk)

I've also been working through a program called Strengths Finder, which as the title suggests is designed to help identify my strengths and what career and life choices I could make that would best capitalize on those strengths in order to advance in my career and be happier overall. It struck me that on a physical level, this is exactly what we probably all need to do when it comes to our own self image. Because of the distorted and extremely narrow view of beauty in America, the vast majority of the population feels it is too fat, too short, too tall, too dark, too light, nose too big, eyes too small, hair too short or long, and so we need plastic surgery, colored contact lenses, expensive clothes and cosmetics, and extreme diets and exercise regimens to try to achieve an ideal of beauty that many of us never reach, and honestly never should. We don't spend enough time focusing instead on what is beautiful about each and every one of us, and work instead on accentuating and building upon what is right about our bodies. In a lot of ways, my work in boudoir photography can help do just that.

I know what some people would think about that statement. "Oh, you're just taking dirty pictures of girls! That's demeaning and objectifying, not empowering!" They say that because they've missed the point; this isn't pornography, but a way for a woman to express her beauty and sexiness, just as much to herself as to the people to whom she chooses to show her boudoir photos. Talking with other boudoir photographers, I've heard lots of stories of how a nervous soccer mom or a recent cancer survivor came into the studio seeking to reconnect with themselves through the lens of a camera, and were stunned to see just how beautiful they really were, just the way they are. A little makeup, a nice outfit (or lack thereof), and an objective set of eyes were all that were required to bring out the hottie from within the veneer of the everyday.

We get so self-conscious about our appearance that many of us choose to hide behind clothes that don't fit properly, make excuses not to go out on the town with friends, and avoid being photographed whenever possible because we don't feel attractive enough to be seen in public or immortalized on film. The face we see in the mirror each morning is never going to be good enough, because we view it through the additional distorting lens of our expectations of ourselves -- the self we SHOULD be, but haven't quite made it to just yet. But once I earn a woman's trust enough for her to let go of those expectations and enjoy a moment of sexiness in my studio, I hope to show her that not only is there nowhere to hide when her clothes come off, but that there isn't anything to hide, anyway -- she's beautiful just the way she is. Yes, she's a little wider around the midsection than Heidi Klum, but guess what? So are the rest of us. What about her expressive eyes, her warm smile, her amazing legs? Why not focus on those?

So you think you're too fat to do a boudoir shoot? Too old? Too flat-out ugly? There isn't a single feature of your body that you like at all, and think there's no way I can make you look beautiful on camera? Challenge accepted, lady. Give me a call, schedule a session, and when you meet up with me again to look at the finished photos, if you absolutely hate everything you see, I will give you your session fee back. There will never be any obligation to buy prints and products after a shoot, and no minimum order -- first and foremost, I want you to enjoy the experience of a boudoir shoot with me, and I want you to walk away feeling beautiful and sexy. In fact, that's the ultimate goal of my boudoir business: I want those photos of you to look so amazing that you can't walk away without buying them all, and feeling they're worth every penny. Then I want you to take it from there, and extend the confidence you feel knowing how good you look to permeate all the other aspects of your life. When you look good and feel good, you're more likely to take better care of yourself, both in terms of physical as well as emotional health. You are bolder, and more likely to strive for greater things, and you not only hang out with other beautiful and powerful people, but also find it easier to see the beauty in everyone around you.

My message to everyone reading this (yes, both of you) is simply this: You are beautiful just the way you are. And if I've got to bring my entire studio over to your house in order to prove it to you, then that is exactly what I'm going to do.  I'm waiting for your call!

Branching Out

Very soon, I embark on a new chapter in my photography career, for I have recently found someone who has expressed interest in a boudoir photo session. Although I don’t know if I will ever reach a point in my business in which boudoir photography will comprise the majority of my paying clients, I would certainly like to leave that possibility open and available, so I’m jumping at this opportunity to work on this aspect of my art.

For those of you who haven’t heard of it, boudoir photography deals with images of the (usually) female form in a more intimate manner than your standard art nude. It celebrates the beauty of the human figure through depictions of female sensuality, rather than strictly sexuality – rather than a form of pornography, in other words, boudoir photography focuses more on a woman’s appreciation of herself and her own beauty. It may or may not involve either partial or full nudity, and is not restricted to the bedroom (despite the name “boudoir,” which was a woman’s bedroom or sitting room, the art of boudoir photography is more about intimacy of the woman, regardless of her location). It produces images of women being and feeling sexy, being comfortable and relaxed in their own bodies.

That’s a very powerful idea, and one that I emphasize in my approach to boudoir. There is something of a stigma attached to boudoir photography by virtue of its involvement with nudity; American society still feels attached to its Puritan roots when it comes to art involving nudity, and seems to shy away from anything even remotely sexual in nature. It has only relatively recently become more mainstream for women to accept and embrace their sexuality and to simply enjoy being in the skin they’re in. So rather than a somewhat fringe and risqué behavior, it is slowly becoming more acceptable and even desirable for women to get photographs of themselves that celebrate just how beautiful they are, no matter their size, shape, age or color.

There are a million reasons why women choose to have boudoir photos taken, and extend well above and beyond that “special present” for their husbands or boyfriends – many do it for their own benefit, their own enjoyment. Perhaps a woman has lost a lot of weight recently and wants boudoir photos as a way of celebrating how much better she looks. Maybe other significant life changes have happened and a woman wants them as an affirmation that she is still a vital and beautiful human, or maybe she’s feeling at the top of her game and this is just one more way to show she’s got the goods. Many women have boudoir photos taken as a group and make a sort of party out of it, as a way to share an experience with their best friends that is completely safe but just a little bit naughty.

Whatever the client’s reasons, it is the job of the boudoir photographer to create art with a client’s body that emphasizes the positive energy and natural beauty she possesses, and to make her comfortable with the idea of others paying attention to her, either directly or through the images that are created through the camera’s lens. Many women (particularly moms) seem to have difficulty justifying doing anything for themselves, in the belief that spending time or money or effort on themselves is somehow selfish, or they give so much of themselves to others that they have forgotten how to appreciate their own bodies. They place upon themselves the onus of meeting the needs of their families before their own, so having photographs taken that say, “Look at me! Look how amazing I am!” seems like the ultimate indulgence, but it’s actually in many ways exactly the opposite: when you feel good about yourself, you’re more confident and ultimately more effective in your everyday life, so taking care of yourself and really feeling your self worth gives you the power to strive for greater things in all aspects of your life. So the boudoir photographer can be a sort of combination of coach and cheerleader, encouraging women to explore and discover (in the words one of notable boudoir photographer) their own “fabulousness.”

Of course, I have the added challenge of being male; female boudoir photographers have a somewhat easier time getting their clients to relax and enjoy the experience of a photo shoot because having a strange woman in their home is a lot less threatening than having a strange man there (even one as handsome as me *grin*). So part of my learning curve is how to put my clients at ease that I’m not just some creepy guy who wants to take naked pictures of them, and that, I believe, will come with time, as I build a reputable and high-class portfolio of boudoir work that people can see ahead of time. When possible, of course, it would help to have Chris present as my assistant, and the makeup artist and hair stylist as well (since I am by no means above conscript labor in getting shots onto the camera if I need bodies to hold lights, reflectors or the odd electric fan), but I’ll need to get comfortable working with a client until she’s basically forgotten I have a gender (or, ideally, that I’m even present in the room), and she’s just enjoying being herself and for whatever reason, a flash keeps going off nearby.

I obviously can’t know that I’ve prepared adequately until after I walk away from the finished shoot, but I’m fairly certain I’ve got what I need to make this session a success. I’m pretty excited, and I’ll let you know how it went when I return. Wish me luck!

Plans for 2013

Yes, I know it's been a while. Blogging is actually a lot harder than it seems, because there are times when you just can't think of anything to say. You'd think that wouldn't be a problem for a jabberjaw like me, but I guess writing uses a different, less-effusive language center in my brain (my memory of biology is sketchy, but I seem to remember Broca's region and Wernicke's region. I don't remember which one does what... but I digress)

I have been experimenting in the studio with some sculpture ideas, expanding on my use of recycled metal components and bent wire to also include old circuit boards. This is probably going to take quite a long time, since I have to de-solder all the old boards I've gotten ahold of, dye them the colors I want (since they're all green), cut them to the shapes that I need, and teach myself how to solder the shapes into place using a copper foil normally used for making stained glass windows. I have plans for a bejewelled tortoise, a Tiffany-inspired table lamp, a dragon emerging from an egg, a jewelry box and some simple luminaria (which I will probably make first, since they'll (theoretically) be the easiest. If there are any requests out there for things I should make, by all means let me know and I'll see what I can do. As work progresses, I'll post updates, but expect it to be slow-going.

On the photography front, I will be providing photography services for Chris's "Mentoring Movement" event in April (click here for tickets and information ), and I also plan to take a weekend in April to cruise through the Palouse, focusing more on the very southeastern corner of Washington and maybe wandering into Idaho and northeastern Oregon. May is kind of shot, with weekend work at the day job and Seattle Symphony Chorale performances ( If you're interested in tickets, click here ), so I won't be able to leave town until June. If my schedule allows, I'd like to get to the Olympic Peninsula in June, shooting both along the coast as well as in the rainforest (Hoh river valley, as well as on up to Hurricane Ridge). And...

(fanfare)

... plans are now set in stone for my trip to Alaska in July! I'll fly out to Lake Clark National Park for several days of photographing Alaskan brown bears during the summer months when any new cubs should be out and about, food is plentiful and the bears are less likely to try to eat me. I'm pretty stoked, and I'll be sure to let you know when the new photos are up and available.

In the meantime, I'm offering a sale on prints on my Photoshelter site. Go to mikeuyyek.photoshelter.com and browse my galleries. Enter coupon code "summerfun" at checkout and receive 40% off your entire order! (Lets just see who's a good blog reader and finds this deal!) To get you started, here are some snowy owls I found last month out near the Washington coast. Enjoy!
Snowy owls - Images by Michael Uyyek

Wild vs. Captive

I just returned from a long weekend at Mount Rainier National Park here in Washington State, and while the weather was clear and very warm, I didn't get many wildlife shots like I had hoped. I managed to catch a glimpse of a fox carring a fresh kill into the underbrush, and I ran across a young bear on the trails above Sunrise, but most of the other animals were conspicuously absent from view. Since this trip was as much a vacation as it was a photo opportunity, I shrugged and chalked it up to luck, which is often more than 50% of a successful wildlife shoot.

On the way home, we discovered a stretch of Highway 7 was closed for some sort of road work, and the detour took us past the Northwest Trek Wildlife Park. Remarking that she had never been there, Chris agreed it might be kind of fun to stop in and take the tram ride around the park, since we were already in the neighborhood. Although the subsequent shots of the animals in the park will probably not win me any awards, it was still fun to see all the different Northwest species (all the large, photogenic ones, at any rate) all in one place.

The experience brought to mind an article written for Audubon Magazine by Ted Williams entitled Phony Wildlife Photography Gives a Warped View of Nature: The dark side of those wondrous wildlife photographs" </a>(March/April 2010) about the pros and cons of photographing captive animals and the questionable ethics of claiming to have shot them in the wild. There is a certain sense of dishonesty that you get when photographing animals at a zoo or game farm simply because you didn't have to stalk the animal ourself and plan your shot so you'd have the best chance of catching our target in just the right poses at just the right angle, with perfect light and environmental elements in just the right places. Especially in the case of game farms that allow you to rent animals specifically for photography, much of the work is eliminated by having a semi-tame animal actually hode a pose for you for as long as it takes for you to get your camera settings just right. Wild animals won't do that, and if you look at the shot I managed to get of the bear at Mount Rainier, it's pretty obvious he wasn't groomed just before I showed up with my camera, either. In fact, he shows signs of being roughed up a bit in his short life, which might add something to his character but doesn't necessarily make him more photogenic.
Captive animals present the professional photographer with two opposing things. On the one hand, they give the photographer access to species that many photographers go a lifetime without seeing in the wild, with time enough to get the “money shots” that actually sell to magazine and book publishers. In the purely economic sense, having a tame animal pose for you is good business, because for a fee, you are guaranteed the best shots you are capable of taking, and you don’t have to invest days or weeks (or sometimes years) trying to achieve the same shot chasing after wild animals. Add to that the benefit of comfort – you don’t have to freeze your butt off in some snowy wilderness for months living off beef jerky and powdered eggs while hoping against hope to capture a shot or two of a snow leopard, because all you have to do is wait for the keeper to bring the leopard out of its pen to hop up on the convenient rock or log in their studio, eat its treat given as reward for behaving completely unnaturally and stand there for several minutes looking bored. They are groomed and look cleaner and more picture-perfect than you will ever find in an actual forest, and almost come with a money-back-guarantee – if National Geographic doesn’t hire you on the spot after seeing these photos, then we’ve done something wrong.
On the other hand, these animals are indeed captive. They do not lead the lives nature intended for them, and while some operators of wild game farms make the effort to introduce enrichment activities for their animals, many do not. The animals often suffer from extreme ennui if not outright abuse.  And as for the photography, as Williams argues in his article, it feels fake. They look too good, and the relative ease of photographing them makes it seem to the viewer that they are more numerous or easier to find and photograph than they really are. When you see dozens of photos of tigers in multiple magazines, all looking healthy and magnificent, it almost seems as though you are seeing them everywhere in your daily life, and you get the mistaken impression that they are nearly ubiquitous in the world at large. The photo, and even the message of conservation that may be behind the photo, gets diluted by the frequency of viewing of similar images.
There once was a time when photographers and editors were actually fired for doctoring photos “too much,” by which they meant at all – even removing blades of grass that obstructed the view of the subject. If you didn’t get the shot in camera, then you didn’t get the shot, and creative editing was considered by many to be a form of fraud. Now we Photoshop everything. Yet in wildlife photography, there is still a sense of integrity that exists among the brethren, that if you can get the shot in camera, that’s always best, and if not, minimal tampering to improve the image is okay but you can’t add elements that weren’t there (adding a moon when it wasn’t really out that night, or wildflowers when they weren’t actually in bloom when you were there). If you must get a shot of an animal for an assignment and simply can’t fly to Siberia or Africa to go get it, it’s okay to get the shot from a game farm, but you had better be sure to declare it and not try to sell it as a true wildlife photo. A few recent cases illustrate this point, where photographers were disqualified from wild animal photo competitions when it came out that their shots were staged using tame animals. They were shots of animals that are normally wild, and the shots looked amazing, but the fakery that went into staging them was and is still unacceptable by the rest of us, who prefer to know or at least imagine that the shot is of a wild animal, behaving naturally rather than because of any conditioning or training by a keeper.
So here’s the deal I make with you. This past weekend, I got halfway decent shots of two wild animals, the bear and the fox, and I got a dozen others from Northwest Trek that were a little better than halfway decent, because they were contained in a 450 acre facility with nowhere else to go, so I was guaranteed to get shots of most of them. They weren’t posed for me, and were not tamed in any way, so they fall somewhere between true wildlife and game farm animals, in my opinion. In the meta data and file descriptions, any captive, non-domesticated animals that I photograph will be labeled “CAPTIVE,” to differentiate them from animals I actually ran across in my wanderings in the woods. I still prefer to find and photograph animals in the wild, but some of them I’m probably just never going to see, so I’m not above shooting at a zoo or even a game farm where I’ve rented an animal for an hour.  (I’ve chased after bighorn sheep every time I’ve visited Mount Rainier and have yet to see them in the wild, yet it took me all of twenty minutes to see a whole herd of them at Northwest Trek) I want to give you as many good shots of as many different subjects as I can, but I want to do so with full disclosure of where and how I got them. It's the only way I can keep myself out of trouble.
Mt. Rainier 2012 - Images by Michael Uyyek