I’ve been enjoying this new BBC series called Spy in the wild.
They send these robot cameras in various disguises to live amongst the animals, blending in and secretly filming. The animatronic spies are very amusing.
Here’s a good clip that also shows how intelligent and curious animals can be:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04px5zw
What has been interesting is that technology becomes the narrative – the animal families engage with the cameras, seeming to know that they look like themselves but that something is not quite right. A group of monkeys accidentally drop one monkey spy and they all gather round and mourn it.
Ok, so the best photography is actually captured by the real human cameramen who shoot from a distance, but it’s a new way of doing nature TV that is showing some interesting behaviour.