A wolf with lush, black fur and piercing yellow eyes is sitting on a stack of rocks in the woods, staring down a group of photographers less than 10 feet away. Whenever its head turns, camera shutters fire off like machine guns. The wolf’s handler asks the photographers how they plan to explain their luck at capturing these seemingly once-in-a-lifetime images. “The story is, you staked out for four weeks, out in the wilderness,” one of the photographers jokes.

    The real story is that the wolf is a three-year-old captive named Zeus, and the photographers only drove out to meet him this morning, from their comfortable lodge five minutes away.

Makes sense in retrospect.

kleinbl00:

Was gonna say, "who gives a fuck?" Some people don't have weeks to stake out the Alaskan wilderness to get shots of wolves that nobody will buy and by definition, if it's stock photography, it's devoid of context.

Obviously, welfare of the animals and safety of everyone around them is of tantamount importance. Threats to safety and comfort of the animals should be prosecuted/remedied as appropriate. The only "controversy" the author can find seems to be The International Society of Photographers Whose Revenues Have Dried Up Since The Advent of Digital Photography and their outrage that Instagram doesn't care if its critters are captive or wild.


posted 2547 days ago