The Dilemma | Banff, Yoho, Jasper (Canada) | June 1-5 2018 · 愛自然-臺灣(iNaturalist Taiwan)

It has been a few days since I returned to the US from my trip to Canada to visit several of the national parks. The Rockies were incredibly beautiful and the area is full of interesting wildlife...most of which, I did not take pictures of due to suffering from an internal conflict that goes against my desire to capture everything that I see.

On the day that I was driving to Radium Hotsprings with an empty tank of gas, panicking and hoping that I would make it to the next gas station, it was understandable why I did not pull over to photograph the wildlife along the side of the road, but every time besides those stressful two hours, I could have easily pulled over like everyone else and took some amazing photos of the bear, deer, and other beautiful creatures that wandered about nearby.

Why did I choose not to? Because it feels unfair. If I were a black bear strolling through a field of dandelions minding my own business (looking gorgeous but not searching for attention), I would surely panic when five cars pull up next to me and start clicking away...This is the same dilemma that I experienced when in India and the urge to photograph everyone I saw was quite strong. How much do you interrupt, disturb, invade the privacy of, others in order to capture a photograph?

In India, I experienced the interesting phenomena of a few people asking to receive money from me to take their photos if I was spotted doing so (it was a system of advanced begging that had developed from some people's experience with tourists), and in one of the national parks, I was harassed by some birds begging for my chips while I tried to picnic on a bench (a system of aggressive begging that develeoped from their interactions with tourist)...both of which, I feel are a direct result of too much outside interruption that I do not want to be a part of.

So, I'm working on finding a happy medium. Keeping my distance and only photographing wildlife if it will not disturb them in any way. This means a lot of missed shots, but it also means that a healthy respect is maintained for other living beings and that some of my best observations will be privately stored only in my memory...But, it is not all bittersweet...the nice thing about flowers and plants is that they tend to be stationary (on a non-windy day) and there seems to be less chance that I am disturbing them as long as I watch where I step.

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