Two of the most prestigious photography awards (BBC & NHM) results were announced over the past few weeks and as one can see the winning images are what once can term as The Best in the class. Its very much evident that in both the competitions the winning images are captured using Remote Triggers and/or wireless/motion detecting sensors or in simple words Camera Traps. Though for a 3rd person it might just look like placing all the necessary equipment and switching on the sensors and relying on the luck to capture the images - i personally dont feel that this is the case. After read, heard and seen ( in videos ) Steve Winter working hard for years to get info about the subject he is capturing and location it frequents and the amount of effort (and money) he spends on setting up the equipment to get the right composition, exposure etc, i feel that there is lot more that a photographer has to do than just merely setting up the equipment and go for a long nap and come back and check the cards for the images on next day. There has been quite a bit of debate that are going on around various international forums regarding the decision and people are infact pointing out to make new rules which state that only images which has the photographer behind the camera at the time of capture should be considered for such esteem competitions. I have personally seen Ganesh H Shankar spend hours and days together in some of the remotest locations in the wild to set up cameras to capture mammals and birds in his unique vision.
Having said that its not good to say that Camera trap images are not creative or not the best of the photographer can do in capturing the moment or even come to an extent of rejecting the entries for photography exhibitions.
I would love to hear thoughts from you fellow readers regarding this and try to get a better understanding of whats running in others mind when they hear such comments. And also would be interested in knowing if the readers see this concept of using Camera traps as a Creative photography or conventional style of photography.