Working For Natural England ft Tony Juniper #199

Before we get into today's podcast, I want to get into a little bit of a moan.

Now, this has got absolutely nothing to do with the subject of today's podcast, so feel free to skip ahead if it doesn't interest you.

But I got approached by one of the leading British wildlife photography competitions last week, and they asked me to be a judge.

Now, this is...

Pepper doesn't agree.

Now, this was obviously very flattering because I've always been quite self-deprecating towards my own work.

I'm a technical photographer.

I'm not a creative photographer.

I know how to get a good technical image, but I don't necessarily have that certain flavour that makes them good for competitions.

And in my own humble opinion, generally speaking, images that sell well are not that creative but they sell and that's the point as doing this for a living.

Anyway, I'm going on a tangent there.

So they asked me to be a judge and I thought that's amazing.

I would love to do that.

I think it'd be a really interesting process.

It involved a few days work, kind of looking through all the pictures.

And then I carried on reading and it said, we can't pay you, but we can give you a copy of the book once it's out.

And I sort of read that two or three times because I was kind of gobsmacked that this competition said that.

So I sent an email back along the lines of me basically saying I was quite insulted by that.

I'm a professional.

This is the only way that I make my living.

And you're asking me to do it for free.

That really, really grinded my gears.

It really annoyed me for a couple of reasons.

One, This competition is run by professional wildlife photographers.

So why would you ask another wildlife photographer to do something for free? And two, they definitely have the fucking money to be able to fork out.

Before we get into today's podcast, I want to get into a little bit of a moan.

Now, this has got absolutely nothing to do with the subject of today's podcast, so feel free to skip ahead if it doesn't interest you.

But I got approached by one of the leading British wildlife photography competitions last week, and they asked me to be a judge.

Now, this is...

Pepper doesn't agree.

Now, this was obviously very flattering because I've always been quite self-deprecating towards my own work.

I'm a technical photographer.

I'm not a creative photographer.

I know how to get a good technical image, but I don't necessarily have that certain flavour that makes them good for competitions.

And in my own humble opinion, generally speaking, images that sell well are not that creative but they sell and that's the point as doing this for a living.

Anyway, I'm going on a tangent there.

So they asked me to be a judge and I thought that's amazing.

I would love to do that.

I think it'd be a really interesting process.

It involved a few days work, kind of looking through all the pictures.

And then I carried on reading and it said, we can't pay you, but we can give you a copy of the book once it's out.

And I sort of read that two or three times because I was kind of gobsmacked that this competition said that.

So I sent an email back along the lines of me basically saying I was quite insulted by that.

I'm a professional.

This is the only way that I make my living.

And you're asking me to do it for free.

That really, really grinded my gears.

It really annoyed me for a couple of reasons.

One, This competition is run by professional wildlife photographers.

So why would you ask another wildlife photographer to do something for free? And two, they definitely have the fucking money to be able to fork out.