Digital Nature Photography and Wildlife Photographs by Mark B. Bartosik

Mark was born in 1955, as the only child of Wieslawa and Eugeniusz Bartosik, in the most beautiful and one of the oldest towns in Poland - Cracov (Krakow). From early childhood he showed a very deep interest in surrounding nature, mostly animals. He started to explore the nature on his own when he was about four years old. He was on vacation together with his parents and was living in the small rented hut in the little village in mountains with the tick forest around. He was so fascinated with the beauty of the forest that one day he decided to leave the hut and become an explorer. He spent the whole day in the forest enjoying every new animal and tree he met on his path. He even forgot about food. When it started to get dark he decided to go back to the hut. To his big surprise he found that the whole village was looking for him together with his desperate parents. They were sure he was lost in the forest. He never got lost in forest. Not then and not in the future. (Well, almost never.) After his first expedition, Mark lost his full freedom for a few years as the parents were watching carefully his every step and offered their company when he wanted to go somewhere. When Mark was about seven they gave up, as he often wanted to spend time in the forest. From then on he was exploring the hills and forest a few times a week - it was only a couple of miles walk from the house where he lived. During vacations he was on his nature trails every day. At that time he started to collect insects, soon narrowed it to beetles and than started to specialize in family Coccinellidae - commonly called ladybugs. For many years it was almost every day work - studying the biology and taxonomy of those insects. As a supplemental research Mark also was interested in the study of reptiles, mostly snakes. He also, in his late teens, started a small "reptile farm" which grown to quite a large collection over the years. At the peak Mark had about 100 different species of reptiles and amphibians, with over 700 live specimens.

Mark's late teens and early twenties were the most beautiful years in his live. He used to travel extensively. He had been collecting zoological specimens in almost every region of Poland. Some times he was living in remote mountains areas for months by himself. He was also doing a lot research in southern Europe. In 1978 he was a member of scientific expedition to Asia where he spent almost half a year in Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan.

As a natural choice Mark decided to choose the entomology as his major study at the university. Unfortunately after he got his degree in entomology he left his country and never was able to work in the zoology field again.

Mark spent couple of years in Vienna, Austria (the country where some of his fathers family had their roots) and decided to move permanently to Houston in Texas where he has lived for almost twenty years.

Mark has been divorced for a long time and never got remarried, as it was impossible for him to find somebody to share the same or similar interests in life. He has learned from the mistakes in the past that a couple must share their interests to be happy and satisfied with life together.

Photography was always very important to Mark, especially as he never could draw very well. Photographs were the only way to document his findings. Also, even more important, he used a camera to catch the beauty of the nature on film and then to go back to it when looking at the prints. Mark has had an interest in photography since childhood but never could afford to pursue it as he can now. In the last several years, the advent of digital photography has opened to him limitless possibilities and experiments. He has taken some college photography courses but prefers to learn from books and even more by his own experimentation. For the last six years, photography has become a life to Mark. He spends his free time either with camera taking photos or in his 'digital darkroom'.

…… The only real time is that of the observer, who carries with him his own time and space. …… Albert Einstein

…… Imagination is more important than knowledge. … Albert Einstein

In my time, I fill up the space around me with beautiful animals' worlds and try to document both the unusual behavior and the natural beauty of the specimens as they pass through their time on Earth.

"Nature photography". In my opinion, there is no more controversial term in photography. Everybody seems to have his or her own opinion. Some of those definitions do not even overlap each other. Let me explain my thoughts on the subject. I see two major approaches. First one is by a photographer who prizes the artistic (aesthetic) values above all, but very often has not even a clue what he/she is photographing and also has minimal or no background in biology. The second approach is more academic, in the extreme done by a scientific photographer trying to document an important discovery. I, myself, have a problem as I am very often caught between these two approaches. I am always trying to get the best possible composition and show the living creatures in their most beautiful pose. But on the other hand, I prize the scientific materials as more valuable. As an example, the beautiful but common photo of an egret taken in a ditch in the park has much less value to me than an average photograph taken of a very rare animal, especially when showing new or unusual behavior. Even if the photographer does some manipulation to improve the background, the former is inconsequential as it has illustration value only. The latter is a very important scientific document and should not be manipulated at all or it will lose its value.

Another very important issue is the place where a photograph was taken ('Wildlife' vs. 'Controlled environment'). Other than a very few remote places in the world, there is no 'wilderness' left. Very few of us can afford to go to such places (time & money factors). Of those who can, only a very few are photographers. From those photographers who can afford to go to real wild places, only a very few are good. Forgetting for now a lot of other important factors, this leaves us with only a few good 'wild' animal photos. I spent half of my life in Europe and half in the United States. For me, Europe doesn't have any real wild places left and the States are getting there. Everything is fenced - agricultural land and forest. National Parks with millions of tourists - all animal behavior is already changed by constant contact with people and their creations. On top of that, air pollution. industrial waste, and the extensive use of chemicals are constantly changing the ecology by killing the species that can't adapt to this new 'wild' environment.

Sorry, but most of those so called 'wildlife photographers' are in fact sidewalk shooters in urban parks or ditches. Sometimes they visit National or State Parks and are making themselves heroes photographing half tame animals along the walking path. I know first hand (I've seen detailed photos) that even in serious international field competitions, the 'pros' are bringing their own perches with bait containers hidden behind them to attract birds. Fresh worms are shipped daily :).

Even the 'big' (read rich) shooters going on safari in Africa are visiting nothing else but the big, controlled farms arranged for tourists -- with big cats so tame that they go straight to a car and pose for a blood-freezing photo. Now the "wildlife photographer" can go back home and show pictures to all his friends, making a face as if he almost lost his life taking that shot. Driving up to the animal in a Jeep and taking a photo is not exactly what I will call 'wildlife photography'. It is very easy to talk about climbing Mount Everest - but how many people do it? How many go on foot to the jungles of Borneo (which are disappearing now anyway), or even better to the jungle in the Congo (one of very few wild places left) to photograph Gorillas in their natural places? Not to a research station with a guide to take them to the tame groups photographed daily by tourists. Try to go in the jungle on your own, find the real wild gorilla, and then get close enough to take a portrait of his face. Most of the people from 'civilized' countries won't survive a few days in the real wild environment, nor will their fancy equipment.

OK, back to the subject of 'controlled environment'. What I dislike the most in life are fanatics. Most of the wars were started by religious fanatics (except a few which started over women). Fanatic photographers are not that dangerous, only unpleasant. Instead of accepting different points of view and different approaches to documenting the beauty of our planet before it is gone forever, they try to impose their limited philosophy -- mostly to 'protect' them from others. Many 'wild' photographs are of very limited quality and, as I try to show above, are taken far away from a real wild place. In my opinion, efforts should be to combine both resources - 'wild' and 'controlled'. The ultimate goal is to document the animals in photos and present them to the public for at least educational purposes. Of course the photo taken in the 'wild' has extra value, but is not always better. Also, a lot of talented photographers who can't go to the jungle for weeks or months (again money, time, health) will contribute excellent images. The 'nature' photographer who has excellent photos taken in the 'wild' won't be jealous about somebody else's photos no matter when they were taken. Finally, there are animals almost impossible to photograph in nature, like the snow leopard, great panda and many others. Not to mention that they should be left alone in their habitat for now and not harassed, especially by somebody with money who just wants to take a few snapshots. For those vanishing species, the only good source for photos is a few zoological parks. And please remember that very soon the zoo may be the only place some species will survive.

I don't believe we can stop devastation of our planet now by the human race, but we can try to slow it down and hope for the best in the future.

…… Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. … Albert Einstein

My best regards to all of those photographers who are devoting a big part of their life trying to document the beauty of the animals' world.

Mark B Bartosik

P.S. English is not my native language so I hope all you readers will forgive me for any mistakes I made in writing these pages. I won't feel offended if you email me corrections. I will be in great debt to anybody who decides to help me by doing so.