I paused briefly on my way off the hill the other day and took a quick photo. It’s not my best work, I may be an artist but photos really aren’t my medium, they are just how I remember stuff, a quick reference of a plant or fungi, a “that light is good” snap to use in my other work later, or (because he is cute) many many pictures of our dog.
So why stop in the road next to the carpark and purposely take that photo?
Well, I took that quick snap because I had been thinking about how photos are so often used to illustrate a point, and how a single image can be spun into many different stories.
There has been a long running, seemingly minor irritation playing out on social media, where a very well known, and enormously influential (both financially and in the actual corridors of power) environmentalist has used two photos again and again to illustrate his points. The irritation being that the photos do not quite show what he says they do. Sheep wreaked land with a high stocking rate is the story being told, yet the images are of a mostly sheepless land or a gathering of a flock on open land.
It wouldn’t matter, but the images stick. You see them, only half paying attention as you scroll, and the impression is made in the soft clay of your mind, like grains of sand they dust that clay every time you see them. There may be a handful of people shouting back into the void of social media “but that’s wrong”, but their comments are only really visible if you stop and click and read, (and who does that?) while tens of thousands see the images linked to the story, and inside their sub-conscious that story becomes just a little bit more real.
Later, when those thousands see the same type of landscape or activity, they see it as a broken place, a bad way of working, a land wreaked by others, whether that true or not.
So, what about the photo I took, and the story it is telling?
Before I start, I have a job for you. Without being told what you are looking at, have a small think about this photo. Dartmoor, cows, tree, clouds. Bit of grass, some gorse. What are you seeing? What is your gut reaction to it (other than saying “hello” to the cows)?
Now, hold that thought…
I could spin that image any number of ways, others could spin it further still. It could be used to illustrate completely opposing views and look right, be telling the ‘truth’…
So firstly, what do I see when I look at it?
I see those bloody cows back off their lear (heft if you are northern) sitting about on my patch as if they own the place. I see irritation and work, I see awkward future conversations about stocking rates and potential government payments, I see hassle.
I also don’t see any dog poo bags or litter, which is a very pleasant surprise.
I see drought stressed land and a managed fire risk.
And I see big clouds that actually bought us some rain.
Other way of seeing
How else could that picture be used, and by whom?
If that photo was uploaded online to a ‘free to use image library’ as many are, tagged “Dartmoor” and then found by a stranger, how could it be used? (I am fully aware it’s not good enough to do that, but for the sake of this article let’s all just suspend our disbelief for a minute!)
If I was looking at getting more people out enjoying Dartmoor I could use that image. Look how close the rocks are to the carpark! Look at the pretty cows! Look, that walk is almost flat and imagine your dog or child running over that grass! You could picnic here! I’d probably lightly edit the image, up the colour saturation a bit, and maybe crop out the cow poo in the foreground, but it is illustrating a happy story, a place of ease and fun.
Or maybe I am a member of a hiking group making a post online, I want to show a wild and exciting (yet easy enough) walk. I may tweak the colours, make it look a bit darker, more tough and exciting. Maybe crop out more of the foreground so it doesn’t look too easy…
But also, those cows… if you highlight how dangerous cows can be and how there is no fence between you and them, and those horns… you could use the photo to tell a very different story, one of mortal peril.
The same image with different words, all true, yet each with a very different message.
The ecological stories we tell
From an ecological standpoint that photo could be used to ‘prove’ a whole heap of differing points. So many it’s almost ridiculous, and in a world where ‘nature recovery’ has big financial teeth, the story that is told about land matters.
So how could I spin that image in this wild time of ‘land use culture wars’?
Firstly, the sheep wrecked narrative. That grass is almost non-existent, it has to be damaged by sheep, because sheep are known to graze that area. Its proof that having sheep on the open moor is hugely damaging and should be stopped. The runoff from rainfall alone is reason enough, and why is it not full of wildflowers and trees? The sheep did it.
Now I know it’s an enormously popular footpath, right next to a sizable free carpark, it is compacted to hell and back by football games, picnics, kids running about and so many dogs. I also know that the sheep wander over it but hardly stick about long enough to eat anything due to the people and dogs, and that it is not going to be turned into a species rich sward by getting rid of the livestock; but post it along with a tirade against subsidies and shepherds, on one of our fast scroll social media platforms, it would become another bit of ‘proof’ in the story of upland disaster.
Next, the lack of trees. Isn’t Dartmoor supposed to be covered in Atlantic rainforest. Its only got one poor hawthorn on it. That’s terrible and proof of bad land management.
But… there are at least 10 fair sized trees in that image, so is that true? Should there be more trees and if so how many? A beloved view would be altered forever. Do we want to lose the view of the rocks from the carpark… Is the view important only to anyone other than shallow minded folk… We need to change what they see as beautiful…
…whichever way you want to spin it that photo could be used to illustrate your point.
I could use that photo to show what a potentially good waxcap fungi site may look like, I could also show what a decent fire break should be. I could be showing the compaction problem where the visitor numbers are high or showing how easy it is for people to access land to start their journey towards better understanding of ‘nature’. I could show how important trees are for livestock, offering shade, or how those poor cows don’t have enough shade.
If I was an archaeologist, I could use that image to show both an accessible bronze age field system, and one in danger of being damaged by footfall. Both points would be well illustrated and both may well be right.
So, what did you see first, when I asked you to look at that photo? What stories played in to how you saw that land
And, importantly, who told you those stories.
And why?
Another view
Here is another view. Once again of Dartmoor. The treeless land except for the plantation in the distance.
This lands story has been told many times. Too many sheep, not enough care. The tale of damaged SSSI’s and subsidies. A dead zone forestry commission plantation hulking on the horizon like a malevolent invading force. What has become of our National Parks, why are we allowing such mismanagement?
That story is sadly based in facts. The SSSI that is shown is not in favourable condition, (its unfavourable – improving) there is too much Molinia, the surveys don’t lie, the species that should be in a healthy bog were not present in the surveyed squares when the survey took place, the tick boxes did not get ticked.
Then there is the irreputable fact that old forestry plantations are not as species rich as old woodlands, and that there are no other trees visible on that land.
So, adding together the damning SSSI assessment, the knowledge about single species forestry plantations, the story being told, and the photo, and you have a fairly compelling argument against the management of that land. Put in into a pithy post on social media and bam. That story sticks.
But is that the only story of that land?
The black and white photo above, so bleak and compelling, was edited from this one.
And this one tells a different story.
Water, in a drought, showing that though the valley mire SSSI may be in a unfavourable condition it is not dead. Not by a long way. Its hydrology is good, and that should push the Molinia back. There is very little sign of the close-cropped sward of a heavily overgrazed land, and the colour image means you can see that there is heather where the land is dryer.
The plantation is still there, but it looks a good deal less terrible when not a solid dark line lurking ominously on the horizon, you could even start believing that our need for wood, for huge and wide-ranging reasons, from 2 by 4 to woodchip, from high-quality handcrafted furniture to firewood, means that it’s good to see mature and ready to harvest forestry. We import a terrifying amount of wood from old growth forests overseas, maybe a bit grown here is a good thing? Why not have some growing where we can?
You also start to notice the distinct lack of livestock once the colours are brighter. Suddenly the SSSIs assessor’s worry about both Over-grazing and Under-grazing makes sense. That wide open land is not overrun.
So the story shifts, from one of disaster to one of hope. The photo, taken deliberately to show the water, the heather, the hope, once edited became something else entirely.
The facts on the land do not change, plants that should be in a healthy ecosystem are missing. The latest SSSI assessment was not great. The plantation is still not a wild wood. Roof joists are still needed. The land is grazed by sheep, cows and ponies that are owned by people who have both hard-won rights to the common and a deep cultural knowledge of this land.
These pressures are all still there, but the ‘swift look and decide, then scroll on’ that we all do in our social media saturated world adds additional pressures. When you see a place you know on social media, with a story attached that is not fully true (or sometimes is a straight up lie) you are a good deal less inclined to engage with the people who swallow that story without a thought, and a deep resentment builds towards the ‘storytellers’. On the other hand, if you have seen the images of a place and believe the stories being told, you are never going to listen to those that you think have damaged that place.
The brave new world of imagined images
Into this old world of cherry-picking and half truths there has arrived a new player. One that can take anyone’s face and make them say anything, one that can take any landscape and change it. If we can’t even see when a real image is being spun to tell a story, what chance do we have when it comes to AI? How on earth do we protect that soft clay of our minds from the irritating sand of false images that is heading our way? I have a feeling it will be like trying to protect a bit of plasticine in a sandstorm. Do we just disengage, stop believing in anything, or do we go further into our individual corners, only seeing (being fed) the images that either enrage us or shore up our ideas? How will that play out in the longer run?
I’m not entirely sure it is going to play out that well offline and outside.
Maybe we all need to stop having instant opinions, and instead, if we are really interested in a place, start standing outside on that land and listening to as many people who know it deeply as possible, before we make up our minds about what we are looking at.
Then we will have a fighting chance to know when the story a picture is telling us is true or not.
