Envisioning Multispecies Encounters: Photographing Fish in Illinois and Birds in Q atar

This essay examines the photographic documentation of multispecies encounters by fishermen in I llinois and birder‐photographers in Q atar. In the examples I illustrate here, photographs of nonhuman species form an important record of events in which humans encounter other species, be it through sight or sound, in the case of birder–photographers, or through the act of catching and sometimes killing and consuming, in the case of fishermen. Examining these photographs for their content, their composition, and their production reveals clues about the encounters between fishermen, birders, and the species they track. What can these images tell us about the ways in which multispecies imaginings, knowledge, and desires are enacted visually? How does engaging with different groups of species—in this case, fish and birds—require different modes of seeing and looking? I suggest in this essay that these photographs play an important role in how these groups both reflect and produce their relationships—and in particular, their encounters—with other species.