I have a theory that I'd like to share with you. No matter what the skill, there is a Michael Jordan of that skill in the world. For example, somewhere there's a Michael Jordan of mopping. He/She can mop faster and better than anyone -- possibly even by leaps and bounds.
Therefore, it follows that there must be a Michael Jordan of ant photography. Possible? Is it possible that I found him?
Photo by Alex WildAlex Wild is a biologist at the University of Arizona with a doctorate in entymology. You might know him from his research papers "
Taxonomic revision of the ant genus Linepithema
(Hymenoptera: Formicidae)" or the sleeper "Observations on larval cannibalism and other behaviors in a captive colony of
Amblyopone oregonensis."
On a more serious note, someone has to photograph ants for textbooks, newspapers, magazines, websites, etc. And Alex Wild is your man running both
AlexWild.com and
Myrmecos.net (the ancient Greek word for "ant"), and before he hopped on a plane to South Africa, he consented to speak with me.
You are a biologist at the University of Arizona. At what point did
you get interested in photography?
Like many digital photographers, I started as a hobbyist. I was already a graduate student in entomology (the study of insects), and I photographed what I liked. So I was taking bug pictures in my back yard with a little digicam. This was several years ago when Nikon was still making those great swivel-body coolpix designs.
The timing was fortuitous for my photography career. Flickr, Smugmug and the other photo-sharing sites weren?t around at the time, so I had to build my own site to have a place to display my photos. The thought of licensing the photos hadn?t occurred to me, I was just a bug geek who wanted to put photos on the web. If I had started now instead of 2002, I would have just uploaded my pictures to FlickR and left it at that. I didn?t realize it then, but having
an independent internet presence would be important.
When did you start licensing your photos? What kind of clients
purchase these images?
In 2003, the first year of myrmecos.net, the internet was smaller. The stock agencies hadn?t yet figured out the importance of the internet. I started getting emails from photo editors who found me through Google and wanted to license my images, a complete surprise, so I scrambled to figure out how to conduct business.
My clients are diverse. Newspapers use my photos to accompany science
reporting, pest control companies use them for advertisements, science museums
use them in exhibits. I get a lot of textbooks and field guides as well.
Photo by Alex WildDid you determine there was a dearth of high quality ant photographs?
The issue with insect photographs is not that there aren't enough of them. The digital revolution has brought us a whole new generation of prolific insect photographers. Rather, the issue is that much of the demand for insect photos is for particular species showing particular behaviors. The value comes from the technical information about the subject just as much as the aesthetics of the image, and most people taking insect photos lack the training to recognize what they're shooting, or to know what to shoot.
Entomology is a specialized discipline that requires a fair amount of training, and many of the top-tier of insect photographers- people like Piotr Naskrecki (The Smaller Majority) and Mark Moffett (National Geographic)- are Ph.D. scientists with a string of research publications. Just as for fashion or sports photography, successful insect photographers need an insider's
knowledge of their field.
How did you determine your licensing prices?
Gosh, I'm still figuring that out. It's trial and error. Some clients express surprise at what a bargain they're getting while others tell me they can't meet my rates. Between the two, one develops a sense of where the market is for a particular kind of use. For example, newspapers are cash-strapped at the moment and generally have no budget for science images.
