https://vimeo.com/85405584
In this week’s episode of Behind the Lens, I take a look at the “Evolution of a Photograph.” I walk you through my process when I am working in the field and use photography to discover what I am seeing and let my image evolve. In this particular case, I show you the evolution of the photography “Ducks, Cranes, and Pelicans.” Enjoy!
Hundreds of Sandhill Cranes join a small flock of White Pelicans and thousands of ducks to roost in the Click Ponds at Viera Wetlands. (click on the image to view larger)
Last week while I was shooting the Great Blue Heron Courtship film, I spent an evening at the Click Ponds, just adjacent to Viera Wetlands at sunset. Each evening, several hundred Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) are coming in to roost in the ponds and it is a pretty spectacular show. A few days earlier, I had spent some time photographing and filming from the west side of the pond with the light at my back and gotten a few decent images but nothing spectacular. To try for something different, I decided to shoot on the east side of the pond, shooting back into the setting sun.
By the time I made it to the ponds, the sun had already set but the sky was ablaze. It was a chaotic scene with a large flock of White Pelicans, close to a thousand or more ducks, and a growing flock of cranes. To tell the story, I really wanted to isolate a few of the cranes in flight as they came into the pond at dusk. After taking a bunch of images, I finally found a group of birds that walked away from the dense flock just as a couple more cranes entered my frame. So far, this one of my favorite experiences and photographs from the project.
To learn more about the evolution of this image, watch this week’s episode of Behind the Lens, “The Evolution of a Photography.”
Today, I’d like to announce the latest short film in the Nature Profiles series, Great Blue Heron Courtship. Take a moment to learn about the beautiful displays that Great Blue Herons perform during their courtship and nest building. I had a blast filming this at Viera Wetlands (officially the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands at Viera). It was great to see a few old friends and make some new ones while working on this piece. A little bit later in the season, I’ll do another film about parental care once the chicks hatch and the action picks up again! Enjoy!
https://vimeo.com/84927855
I have just released the latest episode of Behind the Lens, “Stills vs Video: Handling the Camera“. This is the first in many episodes where I talk about how shooting stills and video is different and the different things I have to think about. For this first installment, I start with the basics–how I handle the camera and some of the major differences I found when I first started shooting video with a DSLR. Enjoy!
https://vimeo.com/84283271
This morning I am happy to release this week’s episode of Behind the Lens, “Filming in the Spatterdock.” This is meant to be a companion piece to Tuesday’s “Dawn in the Spatterdock” providing a behind the scenes look at the filming of that episode of Nature Profiles. Join me as I sit on the edge of Lake Jackson in the Prairie Lakes Unit of Three Lakes Prairie Wildlife Management Area south of Orlando. I hope this gives you a small taste of what it is like to sit behind the camera waiting on birds to come near and what is going through my head while I am waiting. Hope you enjoy!
This morning I have released the first real episode in the Nature Profiles series, Dawn in the Spatterdock. Take three minutes to learn about Spatterdock (Nuphar advena), a common native aquatic plant found in many local lakes. It really is amazing how many different species of birds and other animals use the Spatterdock as hunting grounds. Enjoy!
http://vimeo.com/83683371
Join me as I explore the process behind photographing the various species for the Daily Species and how I do it in a boat in this week’s episode of Behind the Lens.
My wife Carrie holds the background for my field studio while I photograph a Grey (Mangrove) Snapper in the fish tank.
During the past week I have been working hard to document many of the species that are found in the waters around Little Gasparilla Island. To do this, I really needed to make my field studio portable so that I could photograph various species of fish before releasing them. I worked hard to set up my field studio and aquarium in the boat where space is at a serious premium. Add some strong winds, high boat traffic, and a giant white diffuser and things got pretty complicated. Fortunately, my wife Carrie was with me and could act as a flash stand (and she also caught most of the specimens I photographed).
The studio you see here looks complicated but is actually pretty simple. It is all based around a 10 gallon fish tank where the subject is held. I have a single flash above the tank with a small diffuser to light the subject itself. The white background is the large diffuser that Carrie is holding and I use two flashes to light it evenly. Not only does this provide the background, it also provides some backlighting to highlight the translucent parts of the subject. This exact setup was used for a lot of subjects, some of which will be published in the coming weeks, but if you want to see some results now, check out the Grey (Mangrove) Snapper and keep an eye out for the Gag Grouper, Spotted Seatrout, and Diamond Lizardfish coming soon.
Check back tomorrow for the next episode of Behind the Lens for a more in depth look at the effort behind creating the photographs for the Daily Species over the past week.
A winter sunset over the Gulf of Mexico on the beach of Little Gasparilla Island
It has been less than a week since Filming Florida officially launched and so far so great! Over the past few months, I spent a lot of time thinking about where and how I was going to start Filming Florida. Ultimately, I decided to start where it all began for me, on the west coast of Florida on a small barrier island called Little Gasparilla Island. My family has been fortunate to co-own a beach house with a few other families on this small barrier island, only accessible by boat. I can’t remember my first visit here as I was only 10 months old, but countless trips over the last 30 years has really shaped my passion for exploration and learning about the natural world.
I grew up here fishing with my dad and had an amazing amount of freedom to explore on my own, even from a very young age. I think I was probably only eight or so when I was constantly wading around the dock with a net catching small fish, shrimp, crabs, and the occasional seahorse. It was just a few years after that when I was driving around in a small skiff fishing and exploring by myself. This really is the place where I fell in love with natural Florida and I can’t think of a better place to start the journey of Filming Florida.
The sun lights up the clouds over a lagoon with Red Mangrove islands at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge before dawn.
Happy New Year! Filming Florida is now live and I am thrilled. After months of planning, packing, and preparation, I am working full time on this project and can’t wait for the adventures and journey. I’ve got a ton of plans and am really excited to revisit familiar haunts and explore new locations. I invite you to join me on this journey and follow the project on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and of course on this site. The introductory episodes of both Behind the Lens and Nature Profiles are now online with new episodes coming next week. I hope everyone has a great start of 2014 and I look forward to sharing this journey with you!
The massive pile of equipment ready to be loaded into my car for the trip south! No idea how it all is going to fit! There are so many different facets to this project that I need equipment for each and every task!
I spent the entire day yesterday packing up all my camera, camping, tree climbing, and scuba equipment. It is just about all organized and ready to load into the car. I honestly have no idea how it is going to fit. I think a couple of those big pelican cases that are buried in the back of the pile are going to have to go on the roof! I plan to leave a week from today or tomorrow, but I’ll be in New York City starting Wednesday through the rest of this week. That means loading commences tomorrow!
I have a quote hanging on my bulletin board on my desk in my office. I hung it up a couple years ago and while it is always there, I hadn’t actually looked at it and read it in quite some time. Just the other day, I decided to take a moment and read it again.
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the providence moves too. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
‘Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!’– W. H. Murray in The Scottish Himalaya Expedition, 1951
The quote, or a slight variation of it, is often attributed to Goethe (as it is on my bulletin board), but after a bit of research I found that the entire quote is actually from W. H. Murray as he is quoting a “very free” translation of Goethe by John Aster. Whoever wrote it is irrelevant to it’s meaning and impact. Committing to something is a major step and that single action can have far reaching consequences.
Back on my 30th birthday in late October, I officially made this website public and shortly after that, I was accepted by LINC into their ArtsLINC program and they became my fiscal sponsor. The project was out there. It was public. I had backing from a pretty incredible organization. I was committed. Just last week, I was visiting family in Orlando over the holidays and started making plans for my move from Ithaca, New York to Florida for this project. After a lot of discussion and debate, I settled on a date and it is soon… I will be departing Ithaca on either Monday, December 16th or Tuesday, December 17th, weather dependent. That is less than 10 days away. I am committed and this project is happening. There is lots to do and plenty to prepare by January 1st, but momentum is building and I am excited! I hope you will join me!
