In conservation the still image is a very powerful tool. To be honest, if things were different I would purely work as a conservation photographer but I'm too deeply involved in project development for that to happen. Sometimes I get irate when people use my images without my permission, most people have no idea the amount of work it takes to get these images, some real sacrifices in tough conditions. I usually need to attach the right words to images to complete the story, I don't feel inconsiderate use of another person's images is fair, I don't do it, why should they...
Soon you'll see more visibly a collaboration with a wildlife conservation journalist who like me has a strong interest and concern in humanitarian issues. We'll be presenting a strong human element with regard to human-wildlife conflict as well as going in depth different aspects of the whole human and wildlife relationship. Various other people connected to WildTiger will be involved, hand picked because they show the right amount of compassion to both sides of the story.
As I've mentioned getting the right information including images isn't easy and nor is the task of applying them to the action to develop projects. I look for people with the right motivation and who really know what it takes. So many ask me "Oh I want to get into something like tiger conservation, how do I do it?" ... my answer is sometimes something like "go and have a couple of kids and realize this thing is not about you" ... I'm being flippant of course, the last thing I want to do is encourage indiscriminate breeding and increasing the population of a species which really doesn't need adding to very much, well, you know what I mean... but the need to understand that real conservation work is hard, for virtually no financial gain and often a lot of time away from loved ones.
But just really understanding the issues is so important, it drives real action. One of the most touching things for me in the last couple of years was a woman in Italy, she quietly went about and held a photo exhibition in her house using some of my images I sent her. She raised funds for our work, she certainly raised my morale.
In the first image you can see one of our human legacies, our destruction of the habitat of other living beings. Of course I have thousands of images of pristine environment as well and it is important to present images and stories with balance, to present the issues, what we are trying to do about them and also to bring hope ... because there is hope, the true conservationists wouldn't do this if we didn't believe that...
