What makes a compelling endangered species photograph?
To me, it has to be the ability to evoke emotion, to stir a sense of longing, and of wishing that these species — our fellow inhabitants on this planet — could stay a little while longer because the world is beautiful and we still have plenty of space to co-exist.
This is exactly how I felt on seeing the front cover of Rare: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species by Joel Sartore
The photo of a red wolf (Canis rufus gregoryi) on the front page is powerful, symbolic and prophetic at the same time. The wolf — never an animal easy to intimide — seems terrified at a certain something, perhaps at the approach of an imminent extinction.
Coming from Borneo, one of the world’s hot spots for diversity but with its own iconic species — the orangutan and the Borneo pygmy elephant — under the threat of extinction, I can certainly relate to these images and feel the same sense of wanting to see them surviving this world.
How to photograph endangered species? More on Rare: Portraits of America’s Endangered Species at Joel Sartore’s website.
