What's wrong with harassment?

That will be confusing for the people who come on the forums and say "I don't want anything manipulated" and then harass everything when they are down there. I am getting fed up with hearing of the number of people who say one thing publicly and then behave completely differently.

 

So soon will be lots of people posting on Wetpixel asking "Can you tell me the resorts that manipulate creatures> So, errrm, I know which ones to avoid!"

 

Alex

Hey, sanctimonious remarks are da best! How else could those who got caught with their proverbial fingers (or whatever creatures) in the jar, be able to perpetuate the age old parental adage: 'Do as I say and not as I do!'

Actually I'd love to see the operators publicly denounce manipulation of critters in their advertising: 'No one prods anything at this resort!' or 'No touchy touchy at our resort!' Conversely, it'd be cool if they advertised their open policy: 'Pick up, flip and prod to your heart's content at our resort!' or 'We are all about touching the critters here!'

I love Wetpixel. You can't witness discussions like this on other diving forums! Come on Alex, tell us how you got those five pigmy seahorses to pirouette through space. Did you shake them up in a jam jar first? Don't try to kid me it's a computer job!

I feel really bad about lifting an old piece of corrugated tin to see grass snakes now ...

Dive safe

DeanB

I had an assistant that had a pet spiny puffer in an aquarium, which he handled and puffed up every day. When it got too big for his aquarium, we took it to London Zoo. A week later we went to visit it. It was in the quarantine tanks. I spotted it but when it saw him, it recognised him, went crazy at the glass and puffed itself up. Tell, me that it was harming itself!

Was that the fish version of Pavlov's dogs :-)

Was that the fish version of Pavlov's dogs :-)

Probably correct - but it lived a long life! Like the Napolean wrasses at Ras Mohammed that, when they died, people said they got cancer from the food divers had been giving them. When I researched an article about it, David Frape, the distinguished animal nutritionist, pointed out that they had lived much longer than normal because they were so well-fed and they got cancer because that's what happens when you get very old.

It's never as simple as we think and we should not ascribe human characteristics and feelings to other species of animal!

That is definately true that the longer you live, the higher the likelihood to get cancer.

The question is what is harrassment and how to define it!

Ok, a really good discussion, it was really interesting to read it. Some kind of harassment that was not so much discussed here is the harassment of larger animals (Mantas, Dugongs, Dolphins etc.) on their feeding, nursery, cleaning sites. Often dive shops offer trips to special areas where you have a good chance to see these large animals. However, many of these areas don´t have a good management in place and too many divers scare the animals away. There are many examples where special spots are prerequisite for a local population and they can be in big trouble when too many divers (and UW-photographers) want to see them. I was really shocked when I saw the Dugong diving industry in Egypt. There are only a handful of individuals left and they are heavily stalked on most of there foraging places. And the UW photographers even increase the pressure because they advertise these places. I saw so many diving journals with dugong images from Egypt. You rarely see other divers in these images, but the real situation looks much different : www.wwf.de/blog/oekotourismus-oder-oekoterrorismus/

Last month I attended a presentation by the Hurghada environmental protection and conservation association (HEPCA) while diving at Wadi Lahami. They made a lot of progress with dolphin tourism, dive boat mooring systems and waste disposal in coastal resorts and towns. I brought up the point of dugongs and they recognize the problem of their disturbance but unfortunately no regulations are in place at this moment.

Bart

This thread is truly depressing, for existing at all. I hope that, by the time that I picked up a proper camera, I had learned to look and not touch.

The excuse (and it is an excuse) that one kind of harm is less serious than another doesn't wash.

Perhaps it's as well that I'm no longer in the game...

Cheer up, Tim, another few centuries and the world will likely have blown up anyway. Or overheated. Or frozen. Or have been taken over by Apple (hmm, maybe not such a bad thing). We're all just passing through. Like the dinosaurs.

We're all just passing through. Like the dinosaurs.

I know. I am a dinosaur...

... and pining, a little, for my Poseidons as I drive around in my hairdresser's/sports Audi TT Mk III that was my consolation prize for giving up the bubbles.

 

I know. I am a dinosaur...

 

... and pining, a little, for my Poseidons as I drive around in my hairdresser's/sports Audi TT Mk III that was my consolation prize for giving up the bubbles.

Wow, that's some consolation prize! Good for you. Get the wind in your hair - rather than the salt.

There has been a few photos on the wetpixel facebook page of late where human forced interaction and harassment is apparent and even encouraged. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the ethos here vs the wetpixel fb page. I think the controversy of interaction is driving lots of impressions and traffic which is something that might need addressing.

1 hour ago, Leehank said:

There has been a few photos on the wetpixel facebook page of late where human forced interaction and harassment is apparent and even encouraged. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the ethos here vs the wetpixel fb page. I think the controversy of interaction is driving lots of impressions and traffic which is something that might need addressing.

I agree and have discussed it with Adam.

I find it surprising that a group that you would expect to be filled with divers and photographers “likes” some of the images that they do. Although if you think of the numbers - the group has 40K members and a popular photo gets 1k likes, which means that just 1 in 40 actually expressed a preference. And I can understand the silent majority of people just saying silent when they don’t like something - after all most people steer away from social media flame wars. 

19 hours ago, Leehank said:

There has been a few photos on the wetpixel facebook page of late where human forced interaction and harassment is apparent and even encouraged. There seems to be a bit of a disconnect between the ethos here vs the wetpixel fb page. I think the controversy of interaction is driving lots of impressions and traffic which is something that might need addressing.

Are you suggesting that the admins of the Wetpixel FB group are encouraging "human forced interaction and harassment?" 

I must confess that I do not see any disconnect. The Wetpixel forum and the FB group are both about discussing underwater image making, and sharing ideas and imagery. This should include discussing ethically dubious techniques and calling it out when it occurs. 

I confess that I find it ironic the levels of opprobrium that is directed at images that show interactions in which the animal is quite free too simply swim away, compared to the complete lack of it when the animals are not being handled when the shutter is released. Seahorses in the water column, boxer crabs in the open, mantis shrimp with eggs in the open, yawning frogfish etc. I think the normalizing of these kinds of images is far more damaging than ones in which physical contact is obvious and can be discussed. 

To quote my response to an images on the FB group recently: 

"As photographers, we need to assume responsibility for our images' effects on an audience. When doing so, we need to beware that the bulk (obviously excluding Wetpixel FB Group members!) of the people viewing our images do not have the ability to determine whether an image depicts positive or negative behavior. The issue is that images showing negative interactions can become normalized, and people start accepting negative images as depicting a naturally occurring behavior. 

For example, the widespread practice of picking benthic species (e.g.octopus and seahorse) up and dropping/releasing them to get images of them in the water column has created a fashion for these types of images. These are generally well-received by the audience as they assume that this is a naturally occurring behavior.However, I am also well aware that the oceans are a big place, and creatures behave in unpredictable ways.

Again as an example, I have (once) seen a wonderpus jet itself up into the water column for no apparent reason. So as a photographer, should I share my image of that encounter? My argument is that I should not, as this may encourage others to emulate the image less responsibly, and it normalizes these images. 

To return to Don Hunter's image, it obviously depicts a memorable and unique encounter with an iconic species. The sunfish was always free to swim away! I have also heard of plenty of other similar interactions with sunfish. However, I would suggest that a better approach to the sharing of this particular image would be to post a beautiful image of the model posing with the sunfish (this was a golden opportunity to do so) without the contact, which captures both the amazing proximity of the encounter and the beauty of the animal."

Hey Adam, Thanks for writing back, I didn't see it until now.

Not at all am I suggesting that, sorry if it came across that way. Quite the opposite. I really enjoy the ethos that you and Alex and the posters here encourage for underwater shooters. It's great to see people be vocal about reducing underwater interactions and to promote ethical diving.
I 100% agree with you about making sure the methodologies used to get photos where handling and interaction aren't always apparent but induce a behavior or an unnatural setting, are questioned openly.

I meant that there are people that are posting to the FB page that do show quite heavy handed interactions, such as the sunfish photo, for example, and people are getting pretty vocal about how touching animals isn't such a big deal. I find it ironic that they chose this community to have these debates when ethical photography is held in such high regard here. Hope that clears it up.

On 2/2/2021 at 11:46 AM, adamhanlon said:

yawning frogfish

@adamhanlon I always used to think that at some point, frogfish (and others) naturally yawned for whatever biological reason.

Since, I've read that: fish do not yawn, at least not the way we do. They do open their mouths sometimes, but that is typically to attract mates or deter aggressors. And perhaps this is exactly your point about normalisation through images - that I used to think this was just a natural occurrence.

So that then makes me wonder, is the photographer / guide purposely harassing the critter to make it yawn? Or perhaps just waiting extremely close to a critter harasses the subject enough to make it yawn, so that the photographer thinks they've "captured a natural moment"?

...or am I that gullible, whereas in reality most photographers know a yawn is totally coaxed and just force the image?