Simpson, K., Oakes, S., Stirbyte, A. et al. (4 more authors) (2025) Extinction studies in focus: Reflections on photography at a time of ecological decline. Cambridge Prisms: Extinction, 3. e2. ISSN 2755-0958
Abstract
Through compositional inclusion or exclusion, the photograph can assert and communicate what belongs in a picture, in a landscape, in an ecosystem. It can illuminate what we deem conservation-worthy, or, on a larger scale, which extinctions are attention-worthy. Photographic practice helps to illuminate the active nature of extinction, and our choices as actors and witnesses within that process. Here, researchers from the University of Leeds’ Extinction Studies Doctoral Training Programme present individual reflections on interdisciplinary practice-led research in the Scottish Small Isles. We consider how photography, as a form of praxis, can generate new forms of knowledge surrounding extinction: its meanings, representations, and legacies, particularly through visual representation. We offer seven perspectives on contemporary image-making, from disciplines including philosophy, conservation biology, literature, sociology, geology, cultural anthropology, and palaeontology. Researchers gathered experiential, ethical, even biological meanings from considering what to include or exclude in images: from the micro to the macro, the visible to the invisible, the aesthetic to the ecological. We draw conclusions around meaning-making through the process of photography itself, and the tensions encountered through framing and decision-making in a time of mass ecological decline.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
---|---|
Authors/Creators: |
|
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), 2025. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0), which permits re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that no alterations are made and the original article is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Environmental photography, declines, practice-led research, taxonomic bias, cultural extinction, interdisciplinarity, conservation, extinction aesthetics |
Dates: |
|
Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 24 Mar 2025 11:09 |
Last Modified: | 24 Mar 2025 11:09 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/ext.2024.16 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:224693 |
Download
Filename: extinction-studies-in-focus-reflections-on-photography-at-a-time-of-ecological-decline.pdf
Licence: CC-BY-ND 4.0