Concepts such as Wildlife or Nature carry with them an array of assumptions about how we inhabit the world. This website seeks to provide alternative ways of thinking about and relating with other beings. I use the notion Biosphere rather than nature, in order to include humans within the general equation, and avoid arbitrary and problematic notions of human and non-human worlds. I utilize the term Protagonists as a reminder that each living being acts upon its environment, transforming it in numerous ways. Whether chemically converting CO2 to O2, dispersing seeds of shade tolerant tree species within a forest, decomposing fallen woody material, or altering wind and precipitation patterns through deforesting, each action contributes to a particular world-building.
This website will include photography that highlights these world-building actors, a blog commenting on particular relevant topics, and some additional resources that seek to question the way we see and think the world we all inhabit. The Print Order section is merely a way to help offset the expenses of equipment/website.
This is not just another wildlife website.
A Note on Photography:
You will notice most of my photography utilizes a specific perspective: a particular framing of the subject, perhaps a blurred backgrounds, particular variations of lighting, etc. Let me clarify: no technology is neutral, each shapes the way we observe or interact with others. In the case of photography, the lens determines quite a lot of how an image is presented (blurred background, for example, results from variables in the lens aperture, the lens focal distance, the distance to the subject, and the distance between the subject and its background).
If an image focuses on a porcupine in a tree, blurring the background, it is not because I think of this porcupine in isolation from its surroundings. Quite the contrary: In order to capture that moment, I would have considered the porcupine’s eating and sleeping behavior and its preference for particular trees. I would have walked through forest brush, observed branches dropped that signaled the presence of a porcupine, heard its clumsy walk on the ground or its synchronized claws gripping at rough bark on a tree. Nevertheless, the selection of a long focal length (600mm) over a wide angle (18mm or 35mm, for example) is a choice that allows me to create a composition that highlights an aspect of the porcupine, rather than see a small brown spot hidden within an image whose main subject is a tree. In the same way, if the image shows the porcupine backlit by the sunrise, it is not because I necessarily value sunrises as important to porcupine behavior, BUT because that particular lighting allows me to expose the image in a way that brings attention to its brightly colored quills in contrast to the dark fur of its face and belly.
You may also ask, what about humans? Why aren’t they included in a photo with birds or porcupines, etc. The reason for their absence is also a technical one. It is hard to compose multiple subjects in an image when using a telephoto lens. There is a genre known as “Environmental Photography” which usually composes a photograph with a subject (sometimes human) within well composed background that illustrates something about the subject. The more famous versions of this genre, however, usually pose scenes, uses wider focal lengths, and often incorporates additional sources of lighting. While I find this genre intriguing, I do not have the experience or technical disposition to it, as of yet.
Like I stated, photography is not neutral. It shapes how we see and interpret a subject. It defines the very presence or absence of a subject. It is due to this very fact that I have decided to make this website, which combines photography with other content that provides various vantage points from which to think about these living beings and our interactions with them.