British Nature Photographers in Wild Life

Abstract

This article concerns the work of a group of British wildlife photographers just prior to World War I. A photographic exhibition in 1912 by members of the Zoological Photographic Club led to the publication of Wild Life: An Illustrated Monthly, edited by Douglas English. Wild Life was published between 1913 and 1918, and, especially in the pre‐war issues, it achieved an impressive standard of reproduction of natural history photography. Mammals and birds were pictured in their natural habitats; hitherto most wildlife pictures had been taken in Zoos, where the subjects were shown out of context. The editor of Wild Life believed that nature‐photographers should have an opportunity to mitigate or correct artistic defects in their negatives. I argue that it is a wildlife photograph's consideration of content and context that determines its artistic merit.