ETHICS
I feel compelled to share some guiding principles that I work by - many of which are in constant transition as I learn more and seek to become a more environmentally responsible practitioner. I believe it’s important to be transparent, recognise the challenges & contradictions of being a travelling/working photographer, and seek to inform viewers and clients further about my practice.
ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT
There’s no denying that in the recent past my outdoor photography pursuits led to some extended travel, certainly more than the average person. All these flights and long car journeys increased the size and impact of my personal carbon footprint. Whilst the battle against climate change can’t be won by the individual alone, I do believe that must to at least start with taking responsibility for our own actions whilst encouraging broader social change through our voting, campaigning, consumer choices and what we choose to eat.
It’s with a great deal of consideration that I’ve been cutting back hugely on this international travel. Whilst there are ways to partially mitigate the impact of travel through well-meaning carbon offsetting programs (which I have been doing since 2018 - some further info below), I do believe that cutting it right down is the best solution. What this means in reality is that I have simply had to say “No thank you” to various international photographic opportunities of tours & workshops, and some of my own desires to explore new locations.
As such my international travel will be restricted solely to Italy. Why Italy? My partner is Italian and her family all still live there. We’ve decided that any trips that we would normally take part in for family visits or photographic reasons should be combined to essentially halve our travel commitments.
CONTRADICTIONS
It would be easy to point the finger at me and perhaps some of my peers and say we’re “pulling the ladder up behind us” or words to that effect. Or indeed that it’s easy to say these things but how much do we practice what we preach. I can only hold my hands up and say yes, I have been privileged to travel and to have been afforded those opportunities. What I can control now is the present and the future and that’s what I’ve committed to do.
Travel has given me a great education; about people, about the natural world, about relationships, about being alive. I don’t want other people to miss those opportunities, but we all have a responsibility to face the climate crisis and do what we can. There are other very important things we can all do to contribute more widely to a more pro-active and environmentally aware society such as how we vote, what we consume and much more. We each must ask our own questions and find our own answers.
MY FUTURE TRAVEL & WHAT WE CAN ALL DO
I have actively restricted my photography in the UK to my local area. The Covid-19 pandemic may have accelerated this approach, but I feel most connected to this area and as such it is at the heart of my photographic pursuits. As mentioned above, all my international travel has been reduced to a bare minimum and I encourage others to explore carbon-offsetting programs to help mitigate any travel we all may take part in.
I would recommend Ecologi as a great company that you can donate to monthly to help become climate positive, irrespective of individual travel concerns. Also companies such as GreenTripper and ClimateCare give good CO2 calculators and information. They also work with Carbon offsetting projects abroad and in the UK. There are a host of options and it can be a bit of a minefield so I’d encourage you to do some independent research on various companies and options. I repeat, it’s not the solution as these programs cannot remove the carbon created by our emissions, but they can seek to offset it in different ways and it’s surely better than doing nothing. Outside of our photographic pursuits there are also many other choices we can make about our banking, home, travel, and political choices that can also have more far reaching positive impacts.
AESTHETICS
I gave this very little consideration until recently when discussing images with a group of students. There was talk of replacing skies in images and quite radical manipulation of various elements within the frame. Whilst I’m obviously fully aware of the power of image editing in the digital age, and keen not to be considered a total dinosaur, it did remind me that not everything we see is always as it seems. Do we trust everything we see? Should we? Does it even matter? The arguments in photography about post-production/editing have raged since even the earliest darkrooms and I’m not here to get into that. Again, the only thing I can speak on with authority is my own approach. I do shoot mainly digitally but I am of the more ‘conservative’ school of post-production. I believe in working to get as close as possible to the final image in the field and as such the final image is never far from that.
Digital art, photo manipulation and even now images created using Artificial Intelligence all require their own set of skills and for many is a highly enjoyable part of the pursuit. Each practitioner will find their own route and can have their own opinions on the matter. I’ve seen some very interesting and challenging fine-art conceptual photography that greatly benefits from the digital age. Indeed, the use of technology could form part of a conversation point about how we relate to images - this could lead to all sorts of weird and wonderful work in the digital darkroom. All of which I would encourage if it’s being discussed and presented in a transparent way by the artist. In the end the viewers will decide, and the photographers must be satisfied internally with the ethics and transparency of their own approach.
Sam Gregory - 2023