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When Nature Photography Meets the Digital Age: A Cautionary Tale
The Question That Won’t Go Away I’ve been photographing wildlife for nearly two decades, and I’ve watched the landscape of our craft transform dramatically. But recently, I witnessed something that crystallized a tension I’ve felt building in our community for years: the growing uncertainty about what constitutes a legitimate nature photograph in an age of AI and advanced compositing. The National Wildlife Federation’s recent Garden for Wildlife Photo Contest became ground zero for this debate when their winning owl image was stripped of its prize following widespread community scrutiny.