Wildlife Photographer of the Year: nature through a different lens

Her photo, Imprisoned, was highly commended in the fifty-seventh Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. 

While sometimes difficult to look at, Celina's work aims to investigate the environmental issues asociated with holding animals in captivity, and the similarities that humans share with what she calls 'non-human animals'.

'I always say that I am a conservationist first and a photographer second,' Celina says. 

'This whole idea that we are seperate from the natural world, that we are different and somehow better is just a fallacy. And so my work tries to dissolve the idea that there's a difference.'

Worlds apart

Celina was researching for a potential story on the world's wildlife trade when she saw this male Bornean orang-utan peering through the barred window of its enclosure. 'This was actually on my day off,' she explains, 'I saw that there was a zoo in the region, and I thought I would go.'

The zoo, which proudly proclaims its natural setting among 'verdant trees and beautiful scenery', also housed bears, tigers, red pandas and more. 

However Celina said, 'all of these animals had pretty horrible enclosures with very little natural stimulation.'

Animal welfare in zoos comes down to a variety of factors including mental and physical stimulation, diet and habitat maintenance.

Unfortunately, the negative reaction to images and stories like this is often directed along national or cultural lines. As Celina says, 'people are really quick to say "this happens in China, or Asia or Africa, this doesn't happen here but it does,' Celina says, referring to the USA's captive tiger problem as an example.

'This picture could have been taken in the UK, this picture most certainly could have been taken in the United States, this whole idea that other cultures are to blame is not the message that I want to convey.'

For Celina, being a multiracial photographer with Chinese and European heritage, this was a particularly interesting visit. 'I found myself inhabiting this weird grey space,' she explains. 'All these people were going to the zoo and looking at this orang-utan from their perspective, with their educational and socio-economic backgrounds, and they were just grateful that they could see this orang-utan at all.'

'Even though I'm personally against the idea of zoos, I understand their perspective. So it is difficult, there is a lot of nuance there.

'At the same zoo, they also had bears on tricycles that you could take photos with, and I overheard two young kids say something along the lines of, "Oh, wow, I don't have a bicycle. That bear must be so happy that he has a bicycle."

'So it just shows that we're coming from completely different versions of reality. That's why I find it so problematic and uncomfortable when people immediately criticise.'

Indeed, across the world a number of zoos, animal sanctuaries and wild animal parks are working hard to achieve and maintain high animal welfare standards, support breeding programmes and ex situ conservation as well as habitat and ecosystem protection.

In addition, zoos and wild animal parks can often be the only opportunity that people have to encounter and appreciate many animals. They can be places where some people first develop a love for the natural world.

'What we do know,' Celina says, 'is that the scale at which we have animals in captivity is really bad.'

Opening the field for women photographers

When asked about the challenges associated with taking her photo, Celina says, 'People tend to romanticise wildlife photography. They want to hear, "It was so difficult, and it was so tough, and we waited months in the snow and the rain," but a lot of the time it's really not that bad.

'And I think that's one of the biggest barriers to marginalised communities, and especially women, from entering the industry,' she adds. 'There is this perception that it's so tough and physically hard, but it's really not that hard. If I can do it, anyone can do it.

'The real challenges are institutional. And for me personally my work can also take a mental toll. Most significantly - and I felt this for weeks and months afterwards - was that I sat with this orang-utan for hours and then I left, and I could go back home and I could continue about my day or I could pursue my projects.

'But always in the back of my mind he's still there. He's probably still there now, sitting in that sad little concrete room, passing the days staring at oblivion. And that is what is the most difficult thing for me by far.'

Celina sees her role as a female photographer of colour as a unique opportunity. She says, 'One of the great privileges of my work is being able to tell stories from a different perspective, that male photographers may not necessarily be interested in or have access to.

'Imagery is so powerful, and for so long we have been looking at the world through the gaze of white men. That has an impact on how we understand issues and the kind of issues that we address at all.'

As the competition closes for the fifty-eighth Wildlife Photographer of the Year awards, Celina considers the reasons behind the low number of women wildlife photographers, and possible solutions to this industry-wide problem.

'The barriers to women are not barriers of ability - we're just as good - but the barriers come in way earlier and stop you getting out there at all,' she says.

'From not being encouraged that this is something you can do, to financial barriers and barriers of safety and freedom,' there are a multitude of factors that might stop a woman from becoming a wildlife photographer.

'For one thing, a lot of biodiversity is found in countries where women may not necessarily have the same rights to independence.' Celina says.

'Also, in my experience, I'm usually the only woman and that can feel very unsafe, for all the reasons that women feel unsafe in male-dominated environments.

'It can be really scary if you are in the middle of nowhere, far away from help, and with no other women around you. That issue of safety is a real barrier.'

Further compounding this obstacle, Celina explains, 'When you ask your commissioner or editor, "what safety measures and precautions are you willing to pay for?", often they will choose a male photographer instead because they won't have to pay for extra safety measures.

'But at the same time, being a woman photographer is an enormous privilege,' Celina says, 'because you have access to stories and perspectives that none of the male photographers have.

'We need more women photographers because we need to see the world through different perspectives. Every individual has different life experiences and the way you see the world is influenced by your experiences.'

When considering the impact of her image, Celina says, 'I want people to look at it and reflect on our place in the world as humans, our role in the demise of all other living things on this planet and our destruction of the natural world.

'I want people to recognise that and have empathy for non-human animals. As soon as we start to recognise non-human animals, plants and living things with a bit more respect and sentience, then we would treat the natural world so much better.'