The Stories That Matter
Donna Feledichuk
From My Article in Spring 2025 PhotoWILD Magazine
There’s something profoundly powerful about using photography to tell a story, not just any story, but one that speaks for the wild things that can’t speak for themselves. The stories that unfold in the quiet hours of dawn, when mist lingers above the lake and a loon calls in the distance. The stories etched in the eyes of a grizzly as it locks its gaze on you, or in the tremor of a whooping crane’s wings as it lifts from a northern marsh, fragile, resilient, timeless.
Those are the stories that matter to me. The ones that remind us of what’s still wild in this world, and how deeply intertwined we are with it. For me, that’s what being a wildlife photographer is really about. Sure, I love the quiet moments, watching loons break the morning stillness, hearing the soft wingbeats of an owl through the forest, but what drives me most is the story behind the image. The way a photograph can whisper (or sometimes shout) about the state of our natural world.
Over the years, I’ve realized that my favorite part of this journey isn’t the awards or even the once-in-a-lifetime sightings, it’s the storytelling. It’s using my camera as a voice for conservation.
The Power of a Lens and a Voice
I’ve always believed photography is less about taking pictures and more about paying attention. It’s a practice in gratitude and observation, seeing the world not as separate from us, but as part of us. Every image is a conversation between light and life, a fleeting exchange that says, I see you. You matter.
Over time, my work has become less about creating beautiful images and more about telling stories that need to be told, stories of species at risk, fragile ecosystems, and the quiet beauty still hanging on at the edges of change.
That’s what I love most about being a wildlife photographer. The camera gives me a way to translate what I feel, the awe, the heartbreak, the reverence, into something tangible. Something that, hopefully, helps others feel it too.
Writing for PhotoWILD Magazine has given me another way to tell those stories. My regular conservation column allows me to linger in the details that a photograph can only hint at, the history, the ecology, the human choices shaping the lives of the animals I photograph. Each article feels like peeling back a layer of the world. Whether I’m writing about the tireless work of a beaver, the slow recovery of the whooping crane, or the complex dance of coexistence with grizzlies, I find myself reflecting not just on the species themselves, but on what they represent: endurance, fragility, and the cost of forgetting.
Sometimes, these stories are heavy. It’s hard to write about loss, about what’s disappearing, what we’ve pushed to the brink. But I also believe deeply in hope. In resilience. In the idea that storytelling, when done with honesty and heart, can inspire people to care and caring is where change begins. It inspires me to feel hope and to have hope for the wildlife that I feel so closely entwined with in the Boreal Forest where I live.
Cover Image for My Story on Whooping Cranes in the Fall 2024 Edition of PhotoWILD Magazine
A Collective Purpose
Working with the Canadian Conservation Photographers Collective has been one of the most rewarding parts of my conservation journey. There’s something profoundly powerful about joining voices — photographers, writers, filmmakers — all working toward a shared purpose: to give nature a platform.
Through projects like Crossing Paths, which examined the impact of transportation on wildlife, and Vanishing, which brought attention to the biodiversity crisis in Canada, I’ve been reminded that conservation storytelling doesn’t belong to any one of us. It’s a chorus. A collective echo.
These collaborations have challenged me to think bigger to connect my work in the Boreal Forest with the larger picture of conservation across Canada. To remember that while my focus may be on owls or cranes or moose, each of these stories threads into something larger, a web of connection that binds all species, including us.
One of the Important Campaigns of the Canadian Conservation Photographers Collective that I was able to contribute to with my photography
The Boreal: My Constant Companion
If I were to trace my creative heartbeat, it would lead straight into the Boreal Forest.
This landscape is my grounding force, a place of stillness, reflection, and endless discovery. It’s where I learned patience: waiting hours in the hush of winter for an owl to emerge from the trees, or sitting silently in a kayak while a beaver paddles past, unbothered by my presence.
The Boreal is more than my muse; it’s my teacher. It has taught me to move gently, to listen before I act, to understand that my presence in the wild is a privilege, not a right. Every time I photograph here, I’m reminded of what’s at stake. These forests are vast, yet vulnerable, rich in life yet scarred by the pressures of development and climate change. Still, they endure. Still, they breathe.
Through my lens, I try to honour that endurance. To show the quiet resilience of this northern world, and to help others see the beauty worth protecting, before it, too, becomes a vanishing vista.
The Wildlife of the Boreal Forest is So Very Near and Dear To Me, and the Focus of My Conservation Work
There’s a heaviness that comes with bearing witness with knowing that some of the species I photograph today may not be here tomorrow. I think about that often when I’m out in the field. The whooping cranes I’ve photographed, once nearly gone, now slowly recovering, are a reminder of both human failure and human hope. The burrowing owls of the Grasslands stand as symbols of what happens when we forget the balance of ecosystems. And the grizzly, once roaming vast stretches of Canada, now survives in fragmented pockets of wilderness.
These encounters stay with me. They’re humbling. They make me grateful, yes, but also restless. Restless to do more. To keep telling their stories until people listen. That’s why I continue to write, to photograph, to speak, to teach.
Being a wildlife photographer has taught me gratitude in its truest form, the kind that comes not from having, but from witnessing. When I lift my camera, I’m not just composing a scene; I’m saying thank you. Thank you to the fox that trusted me with her presence, to the moose that stepped from the fog just as the sun rose, to the owl that sat quietly in the falling snow and reminded me that wildness still exists.
But with that gratitude comes responsibility. The responsibility to do no harm. To photograph ethically. To tell the truth, even when it’s uncomfortable.
That’s the heart of my work, and it’s what ties every photograph, every article, every collaboration together: a deep love for the natural world, and a commitment to protect it through storytelling. Because storytelling, I believe, is one of the most powerful tools for conservation we have left.
