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Craft

This note covers how to make images that answer the research question and read clearly. It draws on experiments with viewers, on guidance for scientific images, on codes of ethics for wildlife photography and on the lab's practice. The note develops principles 4, 9 and 11 of Photography.

Status: working draft of 10 November 2026.

Composition

Experiments with viewers test some of the rules that photographers repeat, and not all of them survive.

  • Viewers prefer a single object near the centre of the frame and, when the object faces sideways, placed so that it faces into the frame. The same biases appeared when participants positioned objects themselves and when they took their own photographs of everyday objects.1
  • The rule of thirds plays at most a minor role: highly rated photographs and a large set of paintings followed it no more than photographs that ignored it.2
  • Aesthetic quality changes how viewers respond. More aesthetic nature images drew more engagement on social media and more moral concern for nature,3 and animal portraits, framed like portraits of people, raised viewers' empathy compared with conventional wildlife photographs.4

For research images, the question sets the frame before aesthetics do. The three distances of the shot list, the setting, the whole feature and its detail, come first (Templates); a composed image for an exhibition can follow from the same visit.

Viewpoint

  • Aerial filming among flying birds in a wildlife series gave viewers a bird's-eye view that treats birds as subjects to look with as well as objects to look at.5
  • Moving images can witness and evoke interactions between humans and other species, and a vocabulary drawn from film theory, anthropology and ethology helps analyse what circulating images do.6
  • A review of methods in animal geography argued that methods centred on humans have kept research from the lived experience of animals, and assessed newer methods that can reach it.7
  • Design researchers who created, edited, organised and reflected on photographs developed a visual language for natureculture, the entanglement of nature and culture, and used it to generate design ideas.8
  • In Khulna, Bangladesh, a photo-response method used participatory photography to study how people make homes with other species, through seeing, telling and being together.9
  • A reflexive guide to visual ethnography covers the theory, practice and ethics of photography, video and electronic media in social research.10

Light

  • Infrared illumination lets cameras record animals at night, as in the studies of climbing eels in Sensing.
  • Glare from the water surface hides what lies below; a polarising filter or a change of position cuts it.
  • Even, overcast light suits records of banks, vegetation and structures, because it shows detail in shadows.
  • A note of the light in the field record (sun, cloud, dusk, artificial light) lets later readers compare images taken under different conditions.

Through Water and Glass

Depth, turbidity, lens choice and battery life limit cameras in water.11 Lab practice adds the following.

  • Get close to the subject, because every centimetre of water between lens and subject reduces contrast.
  • Light the subject from the side, away from the lens axis, so that particles in the water reflect less light back into the lens.
  • Hold the lens against aquarium or pond glass, or use a rubber lens hood, to cut reflections.
  • Keep housings and ports clean, and check the first frames for droplets and condensation.

Phone or Camera

  • Smartphones suffice when the position is fixed and the method checks the result: photographs from smartphones in fixed cradles measure changes in shorelines.12
  • A dedicated camera adds raw files, interchangeable lenses and manual control, which matter in low light, for close-up work and for measurement.
  • For video, Video sets the lab's format; a review of underwater video in fresh water proposed at least 1080p and 30 frames per second for research.13

Honest Processing and Legible Figures

  • Keep the original files untouched, process copies and record each processing step in the metadata.
  • Twelve guidelines for processing scientific images separate acceptable adjustments from manipulations that alter the data, and explain the technical reason behind each.14
  • Image figures in published papers often lack scale bars, mark insets poorly, use colours that colour-blind readers cannot tell apart and leave colours and labels unexplained; recommendations cover magnification, scale, insets, annotation and colour.15

Ethics Codes for Wildlife Photography

  • A content analysis of wildlife photography codes of ethics found them mostly rule-based rather than based on outcomes, and mostly international rather than local in origin.16
  • Photography for social media disturbs animals and plants, through approach, call playback, drones, bait and trampling.17
  • Wildlife photographers should report how they complied with ethical guidelines, alongside the species and its conservation status.18

Open Questions

  • Which light lets cameras record eels at night without changing their behaviour?
  • How should the lab balance composed images for exhibitions against standardised frames for data from the same visit?

References

Footnotes

  1. Palmer, Stephen E., Jonathan S. Gardner, and Thomas D. Wickens. “Aesthetic Issues in Spatial Composition: Effects of Position and Direction on Framing Single Objects.” Spatial Vision 21, nos. 3–5 (2008): 421–49. https://doi.org/10.1163/156856808784532662.˄

  2. Amirshahi, Seyed Ali, Gregor Uwe Hayn-Leichsenring, Joachim Denzler, and Christoph Redies. “Evaluating the Rule of Thirds in Photographs and Paintings.” Art & Perception 2, nos. 1–2 (2014): 163–82. https://doi.org/10.1163/22134913-00002024.˄

  3. Kim, Eunsoo, Julia Lee Cunningham, and Anocha Aribarg. “The Moral Significance of Aesthetics in Nature Imagery.” Psychological Science 33, no. 9 (2022): 1372–85. https://doi.org/10.1177/09567976221083543.˄

  4. Whitley, Cameron Thomas, Linda Kalof, and Tim Flach. “Using Animal Portraiture to Activate Emotional Affect.” Environment and Behavior 53, no. 8 (2021): 837–63. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916520928429.˄

  5. Mikkola, Heidi. “In the Wings of the Dove: Bird’s-Eye View and More-than-Human Gaze in the Wildlife Documentary Series Earthflight.” Studies in Documentary Film 14, no. 3 (2020): 202–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17503280.2019.1651481.˄

  6. Lorimer, Jamie. “Moving Image Methodologies for More-than-Human Geographies.” Cultural Geographies 17, no. 2 (2010): 237–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474010363853.˄

  7. Hodgetts, Timothy, and Jamie Lorimer. “Methodologies for Animals’ Geographies: Cultures, Communication and Genomics.” Cultural Geographies 22, no. 2 (2015): 285–95. https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474014525114.˄

  8. Liu, Szu-Yu (Cyn), Jeffrey Bardzell, and Shaowen Bardzell. “Photography as a Design Research Tool into Natureculture.” Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 2018, 777–89. https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709.3196819.˄

  9. Alam, Ashraful, Andrew McGregor, and Donna Houston. “Photo-Response: Approaching Participatory Photography as a More-than-Human Research Method.” Area 50, no. 2 (2018): 256–65. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12368.˄

  10. Pink, Sarah. Doing Visual Ethnography: Images, Media and Representation in Research. 2001. 2nd ed. London: SAGE, 2007.˄

  11. Struthers, Daniel P., Andy J. Danylchuk, Alexander D. M. Wilson, and Steven J. Cooke. “Action Cameras: Bringing Aquatic and Fisheries Research into View.” Fisheries 40, no. 10 (2015): 502–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/03632415.2015.1082472.˄

  12. Harley, Mitchell D., Michael A. Kinsela, Elena Sánchez-García, and Kilian Vos. “Shoreline Change Mapping Using Crowd-Sourced Smartphone Images.” Coastal Engineering 150 (2019): 175–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coastaleng.2019.04.003.˄

  13. Harwood, Matthew, Casey J. Broom, Angus Van Wyk, Rowshyra A. Castañeda, Marian Y. L. Wong, Anthony T. F. Bernard, Paul D. Stebbing, Alison M. Dunn, and Josie South. “Application, Development and Opportunities of Remote Underwater Video for Freshwater Fisheries Management.” Knowledge & Management of Aquatic Ecosystems, no. 427 (2026): 5. https://doi.org/10.1051/kmae/2026001.˄

  14. Cromey, Douglas W. “Avoiding Twisted Pixels: Ethical Guidelines for the Appropriate Use and Manipulation of Scientific Digital Images.” Science and Engineering Ethics 16, no. 4 (2010): 639–67. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11948-010-9201-y.˄

  15. Jambor, Helena, Alberto Antonietti, Bradly Alicea, Tracy L. Audisio, Susann Auer, Vivek Bhardwaj, Steven J. Burgess, et al. “Creating Clear and Informative Image-Based Figures for Scientific Publications.” PLOS Biology 19, no. 3 (2021): e3001161. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001161.˄

  16. Fennell, David A., and Hojat Yazdan Panah. “Tourism and Wildlife Photography Codes of Ethics: Developing a Clearer Picture.” Annals of Tourism Research 85 (2020): 103023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2020.103023.˄

  17. Davis, Robert A., Claire Greenwell, Belinda J. Davis, and Philip W. Bateman. “Liked to Death: The Impacts of Social Media and Photography on Biodiversity.” Science of The Total Environment 949 (2024): 175106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175106.˄

  18. Ruiz-Villar, Héctor, Ana Morales-González, and Jon Morant. “Behind the Lenses: Biases in the Contribution of Wildlife Photography to Biodiversity Representation.” People and Nature 7, no. 2 (2025): 541–56. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10789.˄

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