Today is a day to show our support for the protection of the amazing planet we live on. Too often we take for granted the place we call home and forget to look after it. In modern history, we have done a particularly poor job of protecting and taking care of our planet. We must also remember we are not the only living beings that call Earth home. Millions of other species of life reside on Earth right along with us in many different ways. Some live in the water, some in the trees, some in the air, and some in the ground. We must protect Earth for the future of our species and the future of the many other species of life on this planet.

As somebody who primarily photographs nature, I feel a small responsibility to look after it, and spread awareness of protecting it. I don’t want my relationship with the natural world to be one-sided. So often I’m using nature for my own enjoyment through hiking, traveling, and taking photos and the least I can do is try my best to look after it.

Being an ethical nature photographer has become really important for me over the last year. I have become more and more aware of the things I was doing that were not respectful of nature. I also was starting to realize the disrespect of nature from humans in general who use the natural world for their own recreation. The more and more I became aware the more and more I started to see the problems. I started to notice trash while hiking, I noticed the unethical treatment of wildlife, and saw the impact our outdoor recreation was having on delicate places. All of these things have motivated me to do my part in protecting and spreading awareness of things we as humans can do to better protect our planet.

Last August as a part of my photo of the moth blog post I spoke about some bad experiences I had while out photographing. These bad experiences stemmed from the gross treatment of a local marshland I enjoy photographing at. It really saddened me to see the poor treatment of such a delicate natural area that is home to many forms of wildlife. What saddened me the most was I know that this is not an isolated incident, this is a problem all over the world. I know a lot of the mistreatment of our planet is not completely intentional, we have done a poor job of educating ourselves on how to protect and respect our planet. So, through proper education, I believe we as humans can do a better job of being respectful inhabitants of this planet.  

Instead of me preaching on what we as humans can do to learn and improve our relationship with the natural world, I’m going to simply link to some organizations and resources we all can use to better our treatment of our planet. These resources are great starting points for learning how to not only be an ethical nature photographer, but a respectful resident of this planet. I strongly urge anyone reading this blog post to take a couple minutes to visit these websites and learn a thing or two about how we can protect our planet and the natural world. 

Leave No Trace - Center for Outdoor Ethics: https://lnt.org/

Nature First - The Alliance for Responsible Nature Photography: https://www.naturefirstphotography.org/

Official Earth Day Website: https://www.earthday.org/