Nature photography is an increasingly crowded field, and it’s hard to stand out among all the photographers creating incredible images. I’ve written before about the proliferation of internet forums for photographers, and how these forums can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, they foster healthy competition among photographers and encourage participants to step up their game and improve their images. On the other hand, forums have the potential to stifle creativity by perpetuating a particular style of image ahead of all others.

As I’ve mentioned before, one forum that breaks that mold is Creative Nature Photography, and the group of Indian photographers who run that forum have created a new online meeting place to share nature photographs that tell a story: Nature Stories. Their goal is to move beyond pretty nature pictures and focus on images that actually illustrate natural history. And best of all, they try to foster collaborations between photographers and biologists! The site is young, but there are already some amazing images posted and some interesting discussions happening – I encourage you to take a look!