There's a photographer somewhere right now, lens pressed against their face like a barrier between themselves and the world, missing the very thing they came to capture. They're surrounded by one of the most incredible moments nature can offer, but they're not experiencing it - they're stealing it. I watch this happen so often. People who say they love wildlife, who travel thousands of miles and spend thousands of dollars to witness something extraordinary, only to view it through a four-inch screen. They've turned wonder into a transaction. Experience into acquisition.

When did we decide that a moment doesn't count unless we own a piece of it?

Over the years I've guided people who judge the success of an entire safari by the images in their camera. A week in the wild, watching elephants play in the water, a polar bear walking silently through a world of ice, witnessing the ancient dance between predator and prey, listening to the night sounds that have remained unchanged for millennia - and they go home disappointed because they didn't get "the shot."

The shot. As if nature exists to perform for our lenses.

There's something broken in this. Something that misses the point so completely it makes me angry and sad.

In the old days of hunting - and I know this comparison will make some people uncomfortable, but hear me out - a hunter might come to Africa for three weeks. Work with their professional hunter. Track for days. Sleep in the bush. Listen to the land. Find the animal they were after, and then not take it because it was a breeding male, or a dominant female, or simply because the moment didn't feel right.

They could go home empty-handed and still call it a successful hunt. Because the experience was the thing, not the taking.

But photography has turned us all into takers. We don't hunt anymore, we harvest. We don't witness, we collect. And somehow, we've convinced ourselves this is love.

The number of times I've told people to put their camera down and just experience the moment - just be present with what's in front of them - and watched them refuse. As if the moment doesn't exist unless they can prove it happened. As if their memory isn't enough. As if being there isn't enough.

The scary thing is, 99% of these people don't actually do anything with their images. They take and take and take, filling hard drives with moments they never actually lived, creating digital graveyards of experiences they were too busy photographing to enjoy.

I've seen a photographer miss a leopard teaching her cubs to hunt because he was adjusting his settings. I've seen people argue about camera positions while a herd of elephants walked past, discussing them like they were props in a studio instead of sentient beings living their lives.

When did we become so obsessed with the evidence that we forgot about the experience?

There's another thing that bothers me, maybe even more. The people who are so caught up in getting the shot, in being praised for it, in being better than someone else, often don't actually understand the craft they claim to practice. They obsess over gear and megapixels but can't tell you how aperture, shutter speed, and ISO work together. They want the results without understanding the process.

They treat their cameras like point-and-shoot phones with bigger lenses, then wonder why their images don't capture what they saw. They don't realize that photography - real photography - is about understanding light and time and patience. It's about knowing when not to take the picture as much as when to take it.

But we've created a culture where the image is everything. Where the hero shot defines success. Where going home without the perfect photograph means you've somehow failed.

This is theft, not art.

When you're so focused on taking that you forget to receive, you're not practicing photography - you're practicing acquisition. You're turning wild places into vending machines and wildlife into commodities.

I had a guest once who spent an entire morning with a family of gorillas in Uganda. Amazing time spent in the presence of one of our closest relatives, watching behaviours that scientists are still trying to understand. At the end, he looked at his camera and said, "I didn't get anything good." Nothing good but quality time with gorillas, and because his images weren't magazine-quality, the experience was worthless to him.

I wanted to take his camera and throw it in the forest.

Real wildlife photography - the kind that matters, the kind that makes a difference - comes from a place of deep respect and understanding. It comes from photographers who spend weeks, months, years with their subjects. Who learn their behaviours, their patterns, their personalities. Who earn their trust rather than demanding their performance.

These photographers take fewer pictures, but they mean more. They understand that the best wildlife photography isn't about capturing animals -it's about sharing them.

When you're truly present with wildlife, when you're experiencing the moment instead of harvesting it, something shifts. You start to see instead of just look. You start to understand instead of just observe. And yes, sometimes you get the shot. But if you don't, you still got something more valuable.

You got the experience itself.

I've been with photographers who put down their cameras and just watch, and I've watched their faces change. The relief of not having to perform, not having to capture, not having to prove they were there. Just being there was enough.

That's when they finally see what they came for.

Maybe it's time we stopped treating nature like a museum where we need to photograph everything to prove we visited. Maybe it's time we remembered that some moments are too sacred to interrupt with the click of a shutter.

Maybe it's time we learned the difference between taking and receiving.

The wild doesn't owe us anything. Not performances, not poses, not perfect light. It offers us the privilege of witnessing something real, something ancient, something that exists entirely independent of our need to document it.

The question is: are we present enough to receive that gift? Or are we too busy stealing pieces of it to notice?

Put the camera down sometimes. Let your eyes be the lens. Let your memory be the storage. Let the experience be enough.

Because when you stop taking from the moment, the moment starts giving to you.

And that's when you'll finally understand what you came to see.

 

G.