For too long, sharks have been portrayed and perceived as the menacing, lurking creatures in the deep. Contrary to popular belief, we are much more of a threat to them than they are to us.
Researchers have found that the ominous music that often accompanies even documentary footage of them has inspired excessive fear about sharks.
In an experiment at UC San Diego, participants watched footage of sharks. Some scenes featured uplifting music, and others had a more daunting score.
The effect was what you might expect. Viewers saw sharks as intimidating creatures when they they also heard ominous music.
But with uplifting music (or none at all), viewers had a more positive impression of sharks.
This is problematic because rarely do we see shark footage without the ominous music, and the negativeportrayals of sharks may be hindering conservation efforts.
“We know from prior research that conservation progress for sharks is sluggish compared to marine mammals and that this slow response may be due in part to the societal marginalization of sharks,” says study co-author Elizabeth Keenan.
After all, in the words of Senegalese conservationist Baba Diou, “we will conserve only what we love.”
And while they’re still not exactly a furry, cuddly rabbit, consider this: you’re more likely to be struck by lightening than fall prey to a fatal shark attack.
“’Impressionism’ was the
name given to a certain form of observation when Monet, not content
with using his eyes to see what things were or what they looked like as
everybody had done before him, turned his attention to noting what took
place on his own retina (as an oculist would test his own vision).”
🌊The Great Wave off Kanagawa, aka The Great Wave or The Wave, is a woodblock print by the Japanese ukiyo-e artist Hokusai. He died at the age of 89, in 1849. Some years before his death he is reported to have stated:
“At the age of five years I had the habit of sketching things. At the age of fifty I had produced a large number of pictures, but for all that, none of them had any merit until the age of seventy. At seventy-three finally I learned something about the true nature of things, birds, animals, insects, fish, the grasses and the trees. So at the age of eighty years I will have made some progress, at ninety I will have penetrated the deepest significance of things, at a hundred I will make real wonders and at a hundred and ten, every point, every line, will have a life of its own.”
“Humans have changed the landscape so much, but images of the sea could
be shared with primordial people. I just project my imagination on to
the viewer, even the first human being. I think first and then imagine
some scenes. Then I go out and look for them. Or I re-create these
images with my camera. I love photography because photography is the
most believable medium. Painting can lie, but photography never lies:
that is what people used to believe.”
