This past October, I went to the Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards in London. My camera trap image of a black bear in the Redwoods of California had been given an award. Last year, my close friend and former assistant Steve Winter had won the big prize with a camera trap image of a snow leopard. We both have invested years in finding ways to make elusive, wild animals photograph themselves by crossing the path of an infrared beam, triggering a disguised camera nearby.

The awards are presented in the fantastic main hall of the British Natural History Museum, under the giant dinosaur; a fabulous setting with all the mood that a great award ceremony should have. This year the winning image was another camera trap image, an Iberian wolf. Iberian wolves have come back from the brink of extinction and this image had the added energy of the wolf jumping over a fence. I was stunned by the image and immediately asked to meet the photographer.

VIEW THE “STORY BOOK WOLF” IMAGE HERE

Jose Luis Rodriguez was gracious and told me he had made the image over many months and many failed attempts by making an arrangement with a sheep farmer. He relayed that he had put “bait” carcasses inside the vacant sheep paddock for many nights while he attempted to get the image he had dreamed of. It is a perfect image. The wolf is in mid-air at exactly the right point. This is very hard to do with camera traps because the beam and the speed of the animal give results that are not perfect. Remember, the photographer cannot be there to adjust anything and most wild animals do not come back and do the same thing twice.I have a well-known image of a wild tiger jumping from a cliff directly into the camera. I got one frame in three months. One.

The jumping Iberian wolf image seemed impossible, but I accepted it because I was proud of the photographer for disclosing that he had “baited” the animal.

My stance on ethics has always been that there is an issue if you cannot stand up and tell the world what you did. The ethics line can blur, it is not black and white. Each situation is different. Full disclosure is always the best approach.

Today, a few months later, the image has been disqualified, the photographer banned, and a wonderful award has been tainted. The wolf was tame, the wall and fence was inside a Madrid wildlife park. After the award was announced, intense scrutiny came down from Spanish photographers who revealed proof that it was Ossian, an animal actor, and that the scene had a distinct tree line that existed in the wildlife park. A sad day.

I have often struggled with the methods wildlife photographers use to make images in contrast to my upbringing as a photojournalist. I once attended a heated ethics discussion in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The panel on the stage made up of wildlife documentary producers finally answered my question about disclosure with the edged: “they will turn off the tele” if we tell them what we do. I have personally tested this. The audience does want to believe what it sees. I was stunned to the point of tears by this exchange.

Remember, I’m not taking the ethical high ground as if I’m a magician and can speak to the animals. Great wild images are hard to make and I have the luxury of time paid by my patron. In Congo, I once put a dog inside a hastily constructed cage and left it in the forest as bait for a leopard. My hope was that the dog would not die and that I could get the very elusive leopard on film, the central character in the ecosystem I was trying to document. I did this with the idea that I would always tell my audience what I did. It turned out to be a very long, funny story but the dog escaped unscathed and we didn’t get the image. Next, I sprayed leopard urine from a zoo on a trail near some leopard dung and we got one frame of a male cat. That became a double page spread in the magazine.

One must be willing to declare the process of making their images; it is an act of essential self-awareness. I firmly believe that not revealing the process leads to darkness whether or not the truth is eventually exposed.

Hopefully, more times than not, you and your clients are on the same visual and aesthetic wavelength. The fact that they’ve hired you to do a job should be a big indicator to you that they like your work. Again, most times things should work out well, but if you do this long enough, at some point you’re going to get push-back from a client. In fact, if you’re not getting any push-back from your clients, it’s possible you’re not pushing the envelope as often as you should be. When things aren’t perfect it’s important to realize that you’re not being attacked personally. At least usually not.

You Suck!
No one responds well to ridicule or abuse, nor should they. I’m not talking about the anonymous online comments of ‘”You suck.” But often clients will give us the “I don’t like it and I don’t know why,” response. This can be incredibly frustrating to hear since you think the shot is great (if it wasn’t you wouldn’t have shown it to them). In these situations having a good demeanor can go a long way towards figuring things out. Using the right vocabulary is very helpful. Prompting them along, using terms like flow, dynamics, feel, situation, purpose, etc. can begin to move the discussion into positive territory. Ideally many of these themes have been discussed ahead of time, but that’s not always possible. I always try to convey an attitude of partnership with my clients. An understanding that we’re working together to solve a common problem. The problem may be as direct as “How do we get this overweight middle aged white guy in a suit to look interesting in a nondescript office,” or as abstract as “How do we visually place our product in the upper echelon of choices?”

You’re the expert
Another common response is “You’re the expert,” or it’s cousin, “I’ll leave that to you.” Both of which can be flattering and terrifying at the same time. When I hear those, I immediately begin to try and pull as much information from my clients about their expectations. Yes, I’m a expert, in photography. I know lighting and composition and texture and contrast and focus. I know a lot about food and architecture and marketing and branding as well. But I’m not a chef, an architect, a marketing director or a brand manager. My clients are. (Or,   at the least, they have someone working for them that is.) In almost every case in my career where there have been aesthetic concerns after a job is delivered, I can trace the problem back to the beginning and to my not having gotten all of the information. I could try and say, “nobody told me.” But I’m the business owner, the buck stops here.

The customer’s always right
Well maybe not always, but the sentiment is solid. You’re being paid for your talent and expertise, but the point to many clients is you’re being paid. If they want you to shoot their product upside down, out of focus and full of mud–try and talk them out of it. If they persist, shoot it how they want it, collect the check and say thanks.* Artistic integrity is great, but it don’t pay the bills.

*One big exception to this is when it’s your reputation on the line also. I’ve had to tell clients “no” before on certain shoots where I would be held responsible for crappy images because the client was unable or unwilling to cooperate.

Criticism allows us to grow as artists and business owners. Without feedback from our clients we’d never get better. Just remember it’s not personal. Even if the client is not particularly good at being tactful about making their point, it’s not personal. Let them make their point, they’ve paid for that right.

Perhaps nowhere else in commercial photography is this more scrutinized than in food work (although fashion is gaining quickly.) Popular history abounds with stories of glue in cereal, marbles in soup and fake ice cream. Hard and fast legal rules are hard to come by. Most people can’t even tell you which division of the federal government is responsible for handling claims such as these (FTC.) And as far as I can tell, enforcement is near zero. Claims are only pursued when a complaint is made by a third party. But just because you won’t get caught cheating is no excuse for doing it.

Figuring out exactly what is allowed is very difficult and time consuming, after all, that’s why lawyers get paid so much. But a simple rule will keep you in the clear for the most part.

1. Shoot what you’re selling, no more, no less.

That’s it. If you’re selling a 4 ounce burger that comes spec’d with two slices of cheese, one slice of tomato, two leaves of lettuce that’s what you shoot. Not a 6 ounce burger, not a 3 ounce burger. Sure, you can make that 4 ounces look bigger and the cheese look extra melty, but don’t add or subtract ingredients. If you’re shooting an ice cream sundae because you’re selling an ice cream sundae, shoot the ice cream sundae. Yes it’s a pain and it’s probably best to try and shoot in the walk in but that’s how it is. Of course if you’re selling the chocolate sauce, or the nuts, or the dish, use all the fake ice cream you want.

Laws and regulations determine what we’re supposed to do. Whether or not we follow those rules determines our ethics. What we do in the absence of rules determines our morals. Photographers have a crappy reputation already, don’t add to it by cheating.