Marcus Westberg
Captive, 2018
Southern China
Category - Humanity versus Nature
Spending most of his life behind bars, this male giant panda gives us reason to consider the intentions behind countless operations which, though they might market themselves as important breeding or rescue centres, become little more than zoos. I had been invited by a conservation non-profit to photograph some of the giant panda conservation work being done. While I do not doubt that many of the staff members at this facility genuinely cared – I have no reason to think otherwise – there were no plans to release these or future generations of pandas into the wild, and (local) tourism was being emphasized as the path for the future – which really raises an issue.
EF16-35 mm f/2.8 Lens - 1/100 sec at f/2.8 ISO 2500