By Meredith Grace Thompson
Noah Coles’ photography is concerned with conservation as much as it is with aesthetics. His latest photography book, Ontario Wildlife Photography, focuses on the wildlife of Ontario and is structured very purposefully to tell a specific story: wilderness being encroached upon by human life and human waste. Breaking his book down into distinct sections, Coles explores everything from birds and mammals to fish and spiders. Each photograph is stamped with the animal’s classification and the date and location of the photograph. They are further accompanied by a micro-essay explaining something about the photo, either how it came to be or something about the animal it contains. Coles’ photographs are beautiful and engaging, with the viewer finding themselves beside and with the animal in question in an intimate yet discreet way. The colours are natural and almost muted without the use of extraneous filters to create light where there is none and colour where there was little.
A photography book in our current hugely over-saturated and image-based society is a difficult feat. In the same way that the camera forever changed the landscape of painters by taking away their steady source of income in portrait painting, the ubiquitous nature of the high-quality phone cameras we carry around constantly and the common nature of over-sharing images from our lives as well as the easily available editing software that exists to make even the most amateurish photograph appear more professional creates a strange pressure for professional photographers.
Portrait photography and high fashion photography where the image is highly manipulated is one thing, but the kind of nature photography that Coles is capturing here is becoming almost commonplace, begging the question of what makes it stand out. His photos are undeniably skillful and his presence near the wildlife in question without causing them distress is perhaps where the main aspect of his skill lies. His lack of photo manipulation is to be commended and stands in stark contrast to the photos which populate so much of social media, making them a unique commodity in book form. The photographs in this book are strong, and the micro-essays describing each are interesting and engaging, carrying a unique “I voice” behind the camera, yet the format of the book is severely lacking. With large block photographs set on the top half of each starkly white page, each the same size and shape, and a block of black text set in ragged right underneath each image, the format does nothing to highlight the talent of this photographer.
Noah Coles is clearly an interesting voice in the contemporary landscape of nature conservation and wildlife photography. His photos luxuriate in the everydayness of his subjects, without intruding on their habitat or space. He manages to get photographs where the subject is often looking directly at him—a raccoon gazing pensively into the camera; a fox pausing to almost say hello—without ever anthropomorphizing them. By including photographs of humans assisting in conservation and clean-up efforts in the “Mammals” section of the book, Coles does not shy away from the fundamental and inherent connection between humans and nature. We are part of nature, after all, inextricably linked to every aspect of it. Noah Coles’ book shows ways that we can more harmoniously live together.
Thank you Dundurn Press for the complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.