On Conservation, Briefly

Photography of wild land is, whether the photographer likes it or not, advocacy for wild land. The question is not whether to be an advocate but what kind of advocate to be. There are two extremes, both of which I have practiced and neither of which I would now defend.

The first is the over-pretty photograph — the one that makes a place look so unreasonably beautiful that the viewer feels the place is already taken care of and requires no further attention. The second is the documentary photograph that records a degradation — the cut, the mine, the spill — in a way that mostly produces despair.

Somewhere between these is the photograph that lets the place be exactly what it is, in the exact light and weather it happens to be in, on the day a particular photographer happened to be standing there. That is the photograph the place itself, if it had a vote, would prefer.