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Subhajit Chaudhuri
21-09-2014, 06:03 PM
This is a collage collected from internet , to discuss. The location of this shot is a popular "bird- photography" place in west bengal, outskirts of Kolkata.
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The location is already shrinking and habitat is diminishing, facing local extinction- thanks to the real estate boom. Yes, the plots are sold; you can see some infrastructure in the picture itself. Last year, there was an active movement to restrict posting photos of breeding species, especially the munias ( red/white rumped/chestnut/black headed etc ) in some of the bird group forum in facebook. But the menace is back. People are posting there "close up"s almost everyday. And this is the attempt to show how they are getting the shots :sad:. Poor munias :(

Mrudul Godbole
22-09-2014, 04:50 PM
This is common everywhere. People need to have self imposed rules which they should follow while photographing birds or animals. In the process of getting photographs, we are disturbing the birds and animals :(.

Bibhav Behera
23-09-2014, 11:24 AM
It is extremely unfortunate that a measure of one's talent in wildlife photography is 'supposedly' measured in terms of how many likes and how close a mugshot you can get of a species. What about subjects and habitats? To hell with ethics and welfare of the subject. Lack of awareness of the subject and more disposable income leads people to take up wildlife photography nowadays without any idea of behaviour. This is the aftermath of it. These people should be identified and shamed.

Abhishek Jamalabad
23-09-2014, 12:57 PM
It is a terrible state of affairs. Wonder what such people think they achieve out of the ill-gotten popularity of their images. In this age, with scores of people taking up recreational wildlife photography, we should be using it as a tool to aid awareness and conservation. Instead, this is how we misuse an invaluable tool. What is the point of photographing an animal in its natural habitat when evidently it has been made to behave unnaturally?

Sabyasachi Patra
23-09-2014, 05:46 PM
Virtually every couple of days I get a call from someone requesting me to take them as assistant. When I ask why they want to do wildlife photography, I get lot of answers. First is I like it. When I did deeper, I find that it is the glamour that pulls people in. Wish they had known the truth.

No photograph is more important than the welfare of the subject. The problem is people are after facebook likes. Some kind of narcissistic tendency I guess. I am told people are buying facebook likes as well to brag about their facebook likes. I had heard of kids buying virtual things in video games. However here we find adults doing the same. Its a crazy world.

One of the major problems of people trying closeups is because people don't understand the concept of environmental images. In US the concept of shallow depth of field to create image of a bird with background out of focus got prominence. Our photographers madly follow that bird in a stick concept going to great lengths to not only blur images during post processing but also to plant sticks and change the habitat of the birds so that they can photograph closeups.

In the following link, there are guidelines for ethics in Nature photography. I hope people can be educated. http://www.indiawilds.com/diary/ethics-in-nature-photography/

Sandipan Ghosh
19-05-2015, 04:56 PM
Great information....good message and awareness to Bird Photographers....