Why fake it when real is possible?

Update 21 Jan 2010: So, it turns out it was faked, meaning that the wolf was proven to be trained/tame rather than wild. The photographer is still denying the claims, but has been stripped of the main prize. The image is still an actual photo, just the circumstances that went into creating it are suspect. Check this article for more detail.

This is the image that was able to win a prestigious award from the British Natural History Museum and also generate a stack of controversy with the veracity of the cries claiming “fake”!! I do not plan on analysing the image in an attempt to determine how genuine it is, there are others before me much better qualified to do so (and much more interested than I am!). If you want to read the background, there’s an article on Gizmodo and another on The Daily Mail.

I find these claims of fake interesting only because I can think of a bunch of ways I would capture this shot, and none of them involve PS!! In case you don’t know me, I’m squarely in the “PS is not a verb” camp – I will always aim to get a shot right in camera, editing is not my style and I don’t find it particularly enjoyable!! But I do REALLY enjoy nailing the perfect shot so that the only work needed is maybe a crop and an upload!!

But I digress – I looked closely at the image and thought about ways I would try to solve the problems so that I could get the image, and here’s what I came up with:

• Laser triggers – I have them, and they would be perfect for this. Set them up along the gate line, align strobes (having tested exposure on previous evenings), set meat out as the original photographer did, and then head inside for a cup of tea. Check camera in the morning…
• Long lens and patience – yes, I think it is possible to catch this image, but there’s no way I’m doing with with a short lens and risking scaring off the wolf (or making it angry!!). So I camp about 15 meters away, with a 400mm fully open and Pocket Wizards to fire strobes near the gate, and I hope I get lucky
• Wide lens on tripod up close – it’s a dark scene, I can’t be sure where the wolf is going to come from. So this time I take the Pocket Wizard and use it with the motor drive, stick a wide lens on (and have it wide open), and rapid fire when anything looks like it moves near the gate. Even with slower shutter speed, the strobe speed should give sharpness and a slightly longer exposure filles out the ambient. With strobe recycle times down to fractions of a second on low power, I could probably get 5 or so frames a second (although at that point the Pocket Wizard might be the limiting factor since they only do 1/200th or so and have quite a long lag between hits)

There are a variety of ways to get the image itself – I think the real trick is getting the wolf in the right place at the right time. I guess that’s where the controversy is, since it’s easy to claim the wolf was trained and placed in position. If I was using the laser triggers, I could camp away from the gate and when the time was opportune, effectively “herd” the wolf towards the gate (and the rush to escape would probably force the jump). Yes it’s random and requires luck, but how much wildlife photography doesn’t?

We’re in an era where the technology is smarter than the operator, and it will only get worse. We already have software like PhotoSketch that constructs an image out of random sources such as Google Images, so the days of crying “fake” are probably going to get worse before they get better.

Not sure about the rest of you photographers out there, but I sleep easy at night – I’m simply not good enough on the editing side of the equation to be able to fake anything!! And the only person I’m competing with is myself, in trying to improve my art!! Idealistic perhaps, but honest…