Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2003/08/28
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Luggers,
Wow, in all history of photography, I don't think someone has done such
a detail examination of a set of photos.
The main problem, so far as I see it, is the accuser has not had the
opportunity to examine the original film. The answers are in there.
The article was both written and photographed by the same person. This
indicates to me, he is an expert on this species of bird.
I do not think the Geographic would have either accepted the piece, or
subsidized the story, if they had any questions about the author.
My GUESS, and it is only a GUESS, is some of the photos were done under
controlled conditions. A real environment is created for the animal and
then placed in it and the action photographed. As Doug Herr can testify,
quality bird photography take an awful lot of time, some times many months.
Waiting an animal to walk into 'just the right spot' isn't always an
option. But, nudging him into it is.
How any of you remember the 'Big Cats" series in the old LIFE Magazine?
In it are two terrific photos which were coaxed. The panther attacking the
monkey where the monkey is screaming and trying to get away was shot in a
walled circle, the poor guy had no chance. The other image is the sun
silhouetting a tiger in a tree eating a gazelle. The photographer John
Dominis shot the gazelle and put it in the tree and waited for the tiger to
appear and the sun to go down.
Is it cheating? Possibly, but those thing do happen in real life, and
one might have to wait years to get such a photo. John spent something like
18 months in Africa doing this essay, and used this technique as a last
resort.
Possibly the same thing was done for the Geographic.
In the list of Geographic people, accused of not doing their job, is a
photo editor, who I know. If, this shoot was totally faked, I think he
would have noticed it while editing the film.
But, anything is possible. I guess we will have to stay tuned.....
Happy Snaps,
Sal
Sal DiMarco, Jr
Philadelphia, PA
Web Site: http://members.fcc.net/sal.dimarcojr
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