BIRD OF THE WEEK NO. 24

Chilean Flamingo

FOR A PROJECT to document endangered species called PhotoArk, Joel Sartore and his team have photographed 14,000 animals in zoos, aquariums, and wildlife sanctuaries. It’s an admirable undertaking and has a clear purpose. Yet for me, there remains an inherent uneasiness about photographing animals in captivity. I’ve done it only once—or twice if you count the Vancouver sanctuary where birds are not confined but are fed by visitors. This Chilean Flamingo, photographed years ago at the zoo in Seattle, has stuck with me. Is there a pathos in the bird’s expressive pose, a sad beauty in the tangle of its precise pink feathers? Perhaps my uneasiness comes from the fact that I, too, succumb to widely held myths about nature photography, such as the belief that there are still wild places on earth untouched by humans. Or that photographs from remote locations are intrinsically more valuable, a vestige of a time when worlds outside our own remained largely unseen. This perhaps explains why Audubon and similar photography competitions base their awards not just on the quality of the pictures, but on the photographers’ stories extolling their own grit—returning to a remote mountain ledge day after day or sitting in cold mud for hours. Bird photography as an extreme sport.

IN THE END, though, one need not go to exotic locations to photograph nature. Yes, being alone in the woods or on the shore with birds is the bigger part of why I photograph them. And I have the luxury of living on the Olympic Peninsula, surrounded by the Salish Sea. Still, I’ve come to feel that photographing nature is more about being alert and curious toward the life around you. A local crow is the subject of one of my more successful pictures. I think pigeons are gorgeous birds. And while I’d love to photograph a Chilean Flamingo on the Andean Altiplano, I try not to think any less of a Chilean Flamingo that lives in a zoo.

Nikon D500, 420mm, 1/400 sec @ f16, ISO 360