A migrating snapping turtle stopped near a pond on Dobbins Ranch at 6:30 on the evening of June 2, 2022. Philip Heying took her picture.

The ranch is just south of Matfield Green, Kansas, where the veteran photographer has lived for nearly three years. After residing, working, and exhibiting in France, Italy, New York, and California, Heying’s move to the speck of a town two hours southwest of Kansas City allows him to be “within the subject that I most want to photograph,” he writes on his website.

Heying’s was a homecoming with a mission. The Kansas Citian and University of Kansas graduate photographs the Flint Hills to draw attention to the grave danger they’re in and encourage others to act.

In 2022, he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for his Flint Hills work.

“Prairies are disappearing all around the world,” says Heying, who has pieces in the permanent collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Microsoft Art Collection, and the Spencer Museum of Art. “They’re either getting turned into farmlands or being neglected into deserts or turning into forests from invasive species.”

Intact prairies are massive carbon sinks – one of seven natural features able to draw in more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than they release – making them crucial components of the planet’s ecosystem.

“Also, they’re just places where a person exploring with open eyes and an open mind can get in touch with fundamental aspects of their experience as a human, and even their well-being,” he says.

To drive that home, he’s filled his exhibition “A Survey of Elemental Gratitude” with macro and micro views of the Flint Hills — from our vast solar system to tiny pond algae — creating a tension and sense of urgency. The images are displayed at the Kansas City Public Library’s Central location through Dec. 9.

Heying’s shot of the Milky Way includes “three jet navigation light trails” and a lone shooting star, a juxtaposition that could point to man’s insignificance or brilliance.

“To spend time living in a grassland is to become subliminally connected to the central alchemical idea: As above, so below,” Heying writes. “The intermingling of forms, the echoes and symmetries of processes that determine and permeate these forms, are constantly apparent.”

Heying’s remarks can seem abstract, but his observations verge on scientific.

In lieu of brief descriptive phrases or whimsical wording, Heying grounds each image with labels noting the location, time and date it was made.

“Algae in a brook tributary of the North Fork Verdigris River – 27 May 2020, 5:41 p.m.” is uncannily similar in color and texture to the migrating turtle’s portrait — the plants and animals are so interconnected they even look the same.

“Everything is contingent on everything else,” Heying says. “We spend way too much time controlling and manipulating the world and not nearly enough time being part of it.”

And while he does want viewers to feel called to act, he doesn’t want to come across as militant or angry. Instead, Heying hopes people will experience a feeling of inclusion.

“We’re in the midst of a massive emergency,” he says. “That’s really the ultimate motivation for what I’m doing now, is trying to deal with my feelings of concern about the state of the planet and the ecosystem and all the life around us.”

This story was produced in partnership with the Kansas City Public Library.

Philip Heying will discuss his exhibition “A Survey of Elemental Gratitude” at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 7 during the Heartland Book Festival at the library’s Central location, 14 W. 10th St., Kansas City, Missouri 64105. The event is free with RSVP. More information at HeartlandBookFest.org.

The exhibition, “A Survey of Elemental Gratitude,” is on display through Dec. 9 at the Kansas City Public Library, 14 W. 10th St., Kansas City, Missouri 64105. More information at KCLibrary.org.

Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.

As their populations dwindle worldwide, photographing leopards in the wild is becoming increasingly difficult. It is also becoming harder to imagine a secure future for one of nature’s most captivating animals.

Through her Remembering Wildlife project, British photographer Margot Raggett is fighting against this trend. She started the initiative in 2016, and every year since then it has produced a photo book dedicated to one type of animal, capturing its beauty in images from across the globe.

All profits are donated to conservation efforts for that animal, with more than £1 million ($1.2 million) raised since the project began, according to Remembering Wildlife. In this year’s edition, the leopard takes center stage.

Over 50 wildlife photographers have contributed to the book, including Maasai Mara-based Jonathan and Angela Scott, presenters of TV show Big Cat Tales, as well as award-winning conservation photographers Neil Aldridge and Suzi Eszterhas.

Raggett believes that showcasing beautiful images of the big cat raises awareness and captures the public’s attention.

“We need people to see what we might lose if conservation efforts aren’t successful,” she says. “Photography is a great way to do that.”

Ladakh, India.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=”this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)” onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”2705″ width=”3500″ loading=”lazy”>

Almost all leopard populations are decreasing. The only exception is the Amur leopard, which lives in northern China and eastern Russia, and whose habitat has roughly tripled since the beginning of the century thanks to conservation efforts. But it remains the world’s rarest big cat, according to WWF.

Out of the nine leopard subspecies, two are classified as endangered and another two as critically endangered. Some subspecies have seen an estimated population decline of up to 90% in recent years.

Finding solutions

Ecologist Dr Vidya Athreya, from the non-profit Wildlife Conservation Society, wrote a section of the book titled “Lessons from a leopard.” She tells CNN she has been working on leopard conservation for the last two decades. “The more I learn about them the more fascinated I am,” she says. “This book showcases the amazing species that leopards are, so it has been inspirational to get involved in something that showcases their aura.”

“[Conservation] is about reviving populations,” Athreya adds. “It is about ensuring people and leopards do not get embroiled in conflict.”

Raggett says that climate change and expanding human populations are forcing leopards into ever-smaller areas. As a result, they are coming into closer contact with humans, becoming more susceptible to snare traps and targeted poaching. Leopard attacks on livestock in places such as Afghanistan are also leading to further conflict, with farmers killing big cats to protect their livelihood, according to Raggett.

Conservation efforts funded by Remembering Wildlife have provided farmers in Afghanistan with predator-proof corrals to house their livestock, as well as education on other protective measures, she says.

“It’s about persuading the local community not to retaliate against animals … and enabling them to live alongside them,” explains Raggett.

Jonathan Scott, one of the photographers who contributed to the book, says that over the years, leopards have suffered greatly because of demand for their pelts.

“The leopard’s exquisite beauty has cost it dearly,” he says. “In the 1960s and 70s as many as 50,000 leopards were believed to be killed each year in Africa to satisfy the fashion industry’s insatiable appetite for spotted cat skin garments.”

Remembering Wildlife helps tackle the threat of hunting by funding rangers, supporting them in confronting poachers. It can be as simple as paying for fuel, new tires or salaries to keep efforts alive, says Raggett.

But despite her efforts, Raggett admits work still needs to be done.

“Remembering Wildlife is like one hose fighting a forest fire,” she says. “We’re proudly standing alongside lots of amazing organizations with that hose.”

Hey Max: I listed my home a couple of years ago and am getting ready to re-list with a different agent. My new agent wants to bring out another photographer and I don’t want to go through the work of preparing my home again. Can I just reuse the images from the previous agent?

The short answer is, it depends. Let’s break down a few things to consider to decide the best way to move forward and get your home on the market.

Misrepresentation and Buyer’s Expectations. In the modern age, more and more buyers are looking online for their next home – according to the National Association of Realtors, 97% of homebuyers used the internet in their home search. Buyers choose which homes to tour based on photographs and online videos therefore it is crucial that homes are marketed accurately. Jim Rohn is an amazing Idaho author whose net worth was estimated at about $500mm at the time of his death. The image he used on the back cover of his books was not that great. On one occasion he was asked about this. His response was that when he met people he wanted them to be pleasantly surprised. One phrase you don’t want buyers to think to themselves when touring your home is, “It looked so much better online”.

Copyright Law and Contracts. In the United States, a photographer owns the copyright to (the right to use) any image they capture. They can assign that right to another party, but unless specifically agreed upon in writing, the images they capture are their property. It doesn’t matter if they were hired by someone else or if the image is of your home. Real estate photographs are not like easements – they do not run with the land. Bottom line – whoever takes the picture, owns the picture. Just because you have a copy of the images on your computer, does not give you ownership of, or permission to use them.

Preparing Your Home to List. Using the previous images will not exempt a homeowner from the work of properly preparing a home to list. If this is your primary reason for wanting to reuse previous listing images, we recommend discussing your marketing plan with your agent. You might be able to outsource some of the preparation work (i.e. staging companies, landscaping companies, cleaning companies, etc.). It is never too early to discuss a marketing and preparation plan with your agent, and is a great topic to review when interviewing agents before signing a listing agreement.

Seasonal Images can have a positive impact on your listing. A very good selling feature is for the buyer to have the ability to see what the property looks like in the opposite season. In Idaho this is most common late Fall to early Spring. Most buyers hesitate to buy what they cannot see under the snow. This is one instance where reusing previous listing images can be very helpful. Seller’s should showcase what the outside of the home looks like during the warm and bright summer months – as long as the images accurately reflect what is under the snow. If you plan to list your home in the next six months, we recommend getting it photographed NOW before the seasons change.

Overall, reusing previous listing images may be a great option for some sellers when listing their homes, however many times it is better to simply take new pictures. There is no guarantee how long it will take to get the approval to use the images. Using another photographer’s work without permission that another real estate agent has paid for can be costly. This includes payments to photographers, MLS fines, and potential copyright infringement legal interpretations. I am a part of a national group of real estate photographers who freely exchange information and share their experiences, tips, etc. In regards to this subject specifically, the range of responses varies greatly – some will go straight to a cease and desist, while others may notify with a friendly text or email first. In most cases, photographers will charge similar rates for reusing prior images as they will for taking new images. If you would like to include previous images in your new listing, we recommend scheduling your new photography appointment as soon as possible, then reach out to the previous photographer and start the process of selecting the seasonal images you would like to include. This will help you list your home as soon as possible and avoid any possible delays with the approval of previous images.

For more information, contact TaylorAnne Walker at twalker@21goldchoice.com or call (208) 518-7949. This article was not written by and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Coeur d’Alene Regional REALTORS®

We’re spotlighting a New Jersey man for his global work in teaching photography. Ed Kashi, Photo Camp Tower, joined ‘On A Positive Note’ to share his experience in traveling to Uganda and Jordan to teach children how to shoot photographs. He’s also displaying their remarkable work.