The Evolution of Wildlife Photography

Its Checkered Past and Promising Future

I’ve been wondering lately about the various genres of photography: what they really are, and what makes them so compelling. Travel photography, street, landscape, portrait, photo-journalism, sports and the rest. We think we understand them, but on examination, their realities are more elusive than we expect.

A couple of days ago I found myself sitting, improbably, at an enormous boardroom table at the World Bank. I was there at the invitation of professional colleagues of my friend Kirk Hamilton, a former senior economist at the Bank and an avid wildlife photographer.

They were there to honor his memory. Kirk died earlier this year after a difficult illness. I and a handful of his other friends had attended to his needs. In the end, I found myself in charge of his large collection (40,000 images) of African wildlife photographs. I had unexpectedly become intimately involved in a genre of photography that I knew nothing about.

As they reminisced, in addition to glowing accounts of his influential professional work, almost all spoke admiringly of his photography and his devotion to the environment and the welfare of the people of the developing world. Africa was part of his identity. It was probably the place he felt happiest.

This prompted my renewed curiosity about the inner nature of wildlife photography, and why it has such a hold on us. Why Kirk’s identity as a wildlife…