Working in Nature: Ethical Principles
David JohnstonDescription
In the last decade or so, the sale of digital cameras has exploded. Many more photographers are accessing public land to capture its natural beauty. In this video, professional outdoor photographer David Johnston reminds you of your ethical responsibilities when working in nature with your camera.
David shares with you his basic principles. Working in nature involves preserving the landscape and leaving it in a natural state. That means prioritizing the natural conditions. Never shoot an image if your actions harm the landscape. Working closely with nature means understanding the ecosystem. He suggests you educate yourself about areas where you might endanger plants or wildlife.
When working in nature, you will have some impact on the environment. You must use discretion when sharing locations with other photographers. Some fragile locations can’t handle the foot traffic. To see a large crowd of photographers shooting soaring eagles over a river is to see their disrespect for the birds and the land. Another of David’s principles is to strictly follow the rules and regulations. Caring for nature means protecting the pristine places where your journey takes you.
David stresses the “Leave No Trace” principle. When working as a nature photographer, you should strive to leave your locations better than you found them. On your photographic excursions, never leave anything you brought in, and never take anything from the land back with you. Hopefully, no one would ever know you had visited a location. This is the ideal method of working in nature. Finally, you can be an ambassador to the landscape and the ecosystem. Beyond just practicing David’s principles, make an effort to promote them to others.
Join pro photographer David Johnston as he shows you his beautiful landscape images captured without harming the land he journeyed through.
Hey, what's up guys. Professional outdoor photographer David Johnston here, and in this video, I really wanted to talk about a very important topic for outdoor photography that's going on right now. As cameras become more accessible to the public, more and more people are accessing public lands all over the world. We, as outdoor photographers, want to respect nature and follow nature's first principles. So I really wanted to lay those out in this video so that we can work together to preserve nature as we go out and photograph the outdoors.
The first principle that you need to follow is prioritize nature over the photograph every single time. There are so many times when we go out into the outdoors and we know there's a better composition in an area that may harm nature, or plants, or trees, or wildlife. We always want to steer clear of those, always putting nature as a priority over how good a photograph can look. This is gonna help preserve places for more people who want to visit these locations. The second principle is educate yourself about the places that you're actually going to shoot.
Are you going to encounter some endangered wildlife? Are you going to encounter some types of plants that are very fragile in that ecosystem? Always know where you're going and what you're shooting so that you can know how to protect those areas and be aware of the things going on around you. Number three is always be aware of the possible impact of your actions. So many times there are ways we can create a photograph and maybe that is jumping on top of a rock or getting on top of some specific logs or debris.
And that's all good and well if that's accessible to the public but sometimes it's not, and we need to be aware of what our actions are doing around the landscape. Where you could be standing on just a pile of sticks in your own mind, you could actually be standing on top of a beaver dam and damaging that dam for other people and for the beavers and the natural ecosystem. Number four is use discretion when sharing photography locations. And I know this sounds a little bit selfish but there are so many times that some locations can't handle the amount of foot traffic that people put on it. These are very fragile locations.
They're not like the big overlooks in national parks that you go to, but some of the more delicate ones that only you or a few other people know about need to be protected, and if you are going to share those locations, be sure and educate people on how they can maintain and protect those areas as well. Number five is pretty obvious, and that's know and follow the rules and regulations in the area you're going. But sometimes getting a good photo can be tempting to slightly bend the rules or kind of neglect them and pretend like you didn't see them. Always follow the rules and regulations of where you're going so you can ensure that you continue to protect that place, so you can go back and keep taking great photos. Number six is always strive to follow the leave-no-trace principles.
These principles ensure that you take nothing in and leave it that's not naturally there, or remove any of those natural subjects that are there and take them back with you. You want to visit a place so that people don't even realize that you were even there before they got there. These are the leave-no-trace principles that you need to follow whenever you go out into nature. And, guys, number seven is actively promote these principles among yourselves as outdoor photographers. We need to continue to be the ambassadors to the place that we go out and photograph to ensure that they remain nice, that they remain epic locations that we're going out to shoot and finding.
So educate others based on these principles and be sure you follow all of these nature's first principles so we can be sure that we still have these locations to go to shoot in years to come.
Good video, but it could probably use an accompanying PDF to download and keep and print out as a reminder. The written word sticks better than a quick video.
I was a Boy Scout (when that was still a good thing). I have always practiced "leave no trace", not just in photography, but in fishing, camping, hiking or even having a picnic If there is any evidence of my having ever been there, it's that I've cleaned up the spot. Keeping mum about locations is also important. I have seen pristine areas trashed in only a few short years after word gets out. Another good rule is to keep things natural. Don't rearrange things for a better shot and don't provoke wildlife. While an animal or bird is more exciting engaging in some action than they are just sitting in one place, spooking them to get them to move is a no no.