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| Celebrating wildlife in pictures | Celebrating wildlife in pictures |
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| Every week the Guardian’s environment desk publishes the week in wildlife on theguardian.com. This picture gallery, featuring the best flora and fauna shots from around the world, has a loyal readership, garnering tens of thousands of views every week. Here, we chat to Eric Hilaire, the Guardian picture editor who has compiled the gallery since it launched eight years ago. | Every week the Guardian’s environment desk publishes the week in wildlife on theguardian.com. This picture gallery, featuring the best flora and fauna shots from around the world, has a loyal readership, garnering tens of thousands of views every week. Here, we chat to Eric Hilaire, the Guardian picture editor who has compiled the gallery since it launched eight years ago. |
| How did you become the editor of the week in wildlife gallery? | How did you become the editor of the week in wildlife gallery? |
| When I joined the Guardian 17 years ago, I worked mainly on The Editor, a weekly media digest that we printed in the paper. Back then, it was still the first generation of the web, so galleries were quite complex to build and great images hard to find. With my background in digital photography, I helped launch a daily gallery on news-related images called “24 hours in pictures”, and combined this with work as a picture editor on the science desk. So when, nine years later, the newly-established environment section was looking for someone to take on pictures, I was perhaps a natural choice. | When I joined the Guardian 17 years ago, I worked mainly on The Editor, a weekly media digest that we printed in the paper. Back then, it was still the first generation of the web, so galleries were quite complex to build and great images hard to find. With my background in digital photography, I helped launch a daily gallery on news-related images called “24 hours in pictures”, and combined this with work as a picture editor on the science desk. So when, nine years later, the newly-established environment section was looking for someone to take on pictures, I was perhaps a natural choice. |
| How did the week in wildlife come about? | How did the week in wildlife come about? |
| I still recall the conversation in which the editors came up with the concept. It was to be launched alongside and as part of the new environment section, and it had a few basic rules: 1) It must contain images from the last week unless referencing a news story about an event that occurred previous to that; 2) It must contain a selection of sharp, high quality images; 3) Those images should be a celebration of wildlife, so no domesticated animals or animals in captivity. | I still recall the conversation in which the editors came up with the concept. It was to be launched alongside and as part of the new environment section, and it had a few basic rules: 1) It must contain images from the last week unless referencing a news story about an event that occurred previous to that; 2) It must contain a selection of sharp, high quality images; 3) Those images should be a celebration of wildlife, so no domesticated animals or animals in captivity. |
| The title “the week in wildlife” has always amused me because wildlife doesn’t adhere to a weekly schedule at all. A week just doesn’t exist in nature! And the idea of imposing that measure of time on animals or plants is quite ludicrous, but I suppose it makes it easier for those of us more accustomed to working in weekly cycles. | The title “the week in wildlife” has always amused me because wildlife doesn’t adhere to a weekly schedule at all. A week just doesn’t exist in nature! And the idea of imposing that measure of time on animals or plants is quite ludicrous, but I suppose it makes it easier for those of us more accustomed to working in weekly cycles. |
| Where do you find the images each week? | Where do you find the images each week? |
| In terms of finding the selection of photos that match this criteria every week, that’s often an interesting challenge. When the week in wildlife first started, we would often use amateur photographers, but we moved to using professionals who are paid for their work. So lots of the great amateur shots are now sent to GuardianWitness instead, and these days we source a lot of images from press agencies scientific journals, and receive several hundred submissions from NGOs such as Greenpeace, charities such as the Zoological society, and conservation societies such as the National Trust, in addition to a handful of ad hoc submissions from individual photographers. | In terms of finding the selection of photos that match this criteria every week, that’s often an interesting challenge. When the week in wildlife first started, we would often use amateur photographers, but we moved to using professionals who are paid for their work. So lots of the great amateur shots are now sent to GuardianWitness instead, and these days we source a lot of images from press agencies scientific journals, and receive several hundred submissions from NGOs such as Greenpeace, charities such as the Zoological society, and conservation societies such as the National Trust, in addition to a handful of ad hoc submissions from individual photographers. |
| Which animal crops up most frequently? | Which animal crops up most frequently? |
| Surprisingly, the animal who crops up time and time again in my inbox is the panda — a creature not only endangered, but almost never found in the wild outside of a single province of China. I have a theory about this. When the WWF was set up in the 60s, they chose the panda on their logo, and it quickly became a symbol of the conservation movement. Simultaneously, China stood up and took action against the destruction of bamboo forests and put huge resources into protection projects. Soon, an animal who had for so long feared for its habitat became the symbol of new China. In the fight to save wildlife, a picture can have a very real impact – it’s just a pity more hasn’t been done for other endangered species. | Surprisingly, the animal who crops up time and time again in my inbox is the panda — a creature not only endangered, but almost never found in the wild outside of a single province of China. I have a theory about this. When the WWF was set up in the 60s, they chose the panda on their logo, and it quickly became a symbol of the conservation movement. Simultaneously, China stood up and took action against the destruction of bamboo forests and put huge resources into protection projects. Soon, an animal who had for so long feared for its habitat became the symbol of new China. In the fight to save wildlife, a picture can have a very real impact – it’s just a pity more hasn’t been done for other endangered species. |
| Why do you think readers respond to the week in wildlife? | Why do you think readers respond to the week in wildlife? |
| The week in wildlife has enjoyed a warm, vocal and very loyal readership since its genesis. And if you don’t get the species or location right in a picture caption, they’re always on hand to make sure you find out quickly! The comments we get from our readers are testament to how much they love it. This gallery is a sanctuary from the rest of the news cycle – here the drama is mainly only to be found in the subject’s beauty. There’s something about wildlife photography that brings out the personality behind the lens as well as in front of it. Often the photographer will have waited hours or days to be able to get a great shot, and they’re delighted when the payoff is worth it. And no two images are the same. That enthusiasm and precision really shines through. | The week in wildlife has enjoyed a warm, vocal and very loyal readership since its genesis. And if you don’t get the species or location right in a picture caption, they’re always on hand to make sure you find out quickly! The comments we get from our readers are testament to how much they love it. This gallery is a sanctuary from the rest of the news cycle – here the drama is mainly only to be found in the subject’s beauty. There’s something about wildlife photography that brings out the personality behind the lens as well as in front of it. Often the photographer will have waited hours or days to be able to get a great shot, and they’re delighted when the payoff is worth it. And no two images are the same. That enthusiasm and precision really shines through. |
| What about flowers and plantlife? | What about flowers and plantlife? |
| There is often flora to complement the fauna – the discovery of a new plant species, a plant captured growing against all odds in the middle of a desert, a plant suffering at the hands of pollution – but the animals still take centre stage. We also see shots of insects. More and more, we see images taken with remotely-operated camera traps, drones or specialised underwater cameras, so the scope for subject matter is expanding all the time, but the animals are still what seem to capture readers’ imaginations. | There is often flora to complement the fauna – the discovery of a new plant species, a plant captured growing against all odds in the middle of a desert, a plant suffering at the hands of pollution – but the animals still take centre stage. We also see shots of insects. More and more, we see images taken with remotely-operated camera traps, drones or specialised underwater cameras, so the scope for subject matter is expanding all the time, but the animals are still what seem to capture readers’ imaginations. |
| Do you enjoy editing the gallery? | Do you enjoy editing the gallery? |
| The subject is an endless mine of beauty and intrigue, so it’s a joy for me and my colleagues to compile each week. Indeed, the hardest part of my job is being selective – it can be really heartbreaking to exclude an image from that week’s gallery, but it’s often necessary in order to achieve variety and create a visual narrative that works. | The subject is an endless mine of beauty and intrigue, so it’s a joy for me and my colleagues to compile each week. Indeed, the hardest part of my job is being selective – it can be really heartbreaking to exclude an image from that week’s gallery, but it’s often necessary in order to achieve variety and create a visual narrative that works. |
| I’d love to see more images with a positive story to tell – more happy orangutans and images of vaquitas (a very rare species of porpoise), for example. So many news stories have one defining image that tells the story, but that just isn’t the case with wildlife – the truth is rich and complex and ongoing – and communicating that is part of our motive. | I’d love to see more images with a positive story to tell – more happy orangutans and images of vaquitas (a very rare species of porpoise), for example. So many news stories have one defining image that tells the story, but that just isn’t the case with wildlife – the truth is rich and complex and ongoing – and communicating that is part of our motive. |
| I’m always pleased to see action shots rather than straightforward portraits and, where possible, images with a message. After all, with trafficking, deforestation, pollution and poaching showing no signs of slowing down, animals have never faced such numerous threats as they do today, and part of celebrating their existence is also acknowledging their fragility. | I’m always pleased to see action shots rather than straightforward portraits and, where possible, images with a message. After all, with trafficking, deforestation, pollution and poaching showing no signs of slowing down, animals have never faced such numerous threats as they do today, and part of celebrating their existence is also acknowledging their fragility. |
| Eric Hilaire is the Guardian’s Environment, Science and Global Development picture editor. | Eric Hilaire is the Guardian’s Environment, Science and Global Development picture editor. |
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