After a couple mornings shooting in my field studio at my backyard bird feeder, I felt like I had pretty much nailed down the setup.  I’ve got a few tweaks to figure out once I get a couple pieces of gear, but overall, I’m good to go.  Now that I have the basics covered, I decided it was time to take the next step.  My goal was to capture something more than just a bird sitting on a perch, I wanted some action!  I had been sort of trying it for a few days, trying to get a picture of a chickadee taking off.  I’d had a tiny bit of luck but mostly was getting out of focus images.  So on Saturday, I decided to make that my single goal.

I setup my background and flashes a little bit differently.  The flashes got moved closer to the background and closer to the bird.  Basically, I set it up like I would a high speed flash setup to capture hummingbirds.  Flashes get closer and their strength gets lowered and then the duration of the flash gets shorter and therefore the action gets frozen.  I then focused on a single perch and waited.  I set my frame, racked the focus a little bit forward from the perch, and used a cable release to take the shot anytime a chickadee landed on the perch.

In my morning session, I took 98 frames.  I kept 1.  As you can see, the timing was the issue.  Getting the bird in the frame, much less in the right part of the frame, was crazy difficult.  The small chickadees are just so fast that it was nearly impossible.  A few Blue Jays came in and the timing was a ton easier but they were so big they didn’t fit in the frame.  At the end of the morning though, I got a single frame that is in focus, sharp, and a dramatic moment with the wings raised.  Proof of concept established and my setup and technique is solid.  On to new tasks this week…  Stay tuned!

Towards the end of last week, I spent a couple of mornings sitting in my blind and photographing in order to test out my field studio for birds for the Meet Your Neighbours project and my Daily Species.  It was nice to get some additional species diversity for fun and test exposure across different color patterns and plumages.  After four sessions, I believe I now have the setup basically dialed in and ready to go.  I will have at least two mornings of shooting in Florida over the Thanksgiving holiday so I need to be sure I have it all ready since I will have very limited time.  Here are some of the resulting images.  Let me know what you think!

Today, I am pleased to announce the first major support I have received for Filming Florida and hopefully this will lead to many more opportunities.  I am honored to say that I have been accepted into the ArtsLINC program offered by the Legacy Institute for Nature and Culture (LINC) (UPDATE: LINC is now officially the Florida Wildlife Corridor and this is reflected on the support page).   This means that LINC will act as a Fiscal Agent for Filming Florida. This essentially means that LINC will extend their 501c3 non profit status to cover Filming Florida.  This will benefit the project immensely, opening the door to many fundraising opportunities.  I would like to take a moment to thank photographer Carlton Ward Jr., who founded LINC, for his vision and dedication to conservation through photography and art. Additionally, executive directory Mallory Dimmitt has been great in her support for this project through the ArtsLINC application process.

I first learned about LINC a few years ago when Carlton, Mallory, Joe Guthrie, Elam Stotlzfus, and others started the Florida Wildlife Corridor project a few years ago.  The incredible conservation work that they have done through that project as well as the multitude of other projects uniting a large group of talented photographers and other artists across the state is inspiring.  I am both honored and humbled that Filming Florida will be affiliated with this organization.

Earlier this week set out to run some tests on my planned setup for photographing birds that are coming in to a feeder or any other predictable perch for my Daily Species in the Meet Your Neighbours style.  Since my main bird feeder had broken earlier this year and I hadn’t replaced it, I decided to head over to a friend’s to use her setup.  Fortunately, she had a plethora of birds coming in and the Black-capped Chickadees were super friendly and didn’t care if I was standing a few feet from the feeder setup.

Basically, my plan for this setup is to have a rather large white diffuser as my background, lit with a single flash. For my front light, I have a single flash that I had planned to modify with a diffuser or umbrella but ended up shooting bare for this setup.  I had a third light stand setup with a clamp that held the perch just over the platform feeder that we moved down to the bench on the side of the deck.  This meant that many birds would come and land on my perch before continuing down to the feeder.  Simple, but effective.

Mostly, it worked.  I ran into a few problems that I will correct for future setups.  First, I left the holder for my big background diffuser on my office floor.  That would have made life a lot easier and I won’t make that mistake again.  Second, I was using Nikon’s Creative Lighting System (CLS) to control my flashes manually using a SU-800 controller.  This means I can control the power of the flash from my camera and not have to walk over and disturb the birds when I want to change the power of the flash.  The problem with this system is that it communicates with the flashes via infrared light which means line of sight is imperative.  The flash that was hiding behind the big background diffuser was not firing, so I had to put it just off to the side which meant it lit the diffuser unevenly.  At this point, I am planning on investing in a set of Pocketwizard FlexTT5s so I can still control my flashes from the camera and since the Pocketwizards operate on radio triggers, I won’t have to operate on line of sight.  I may also add a second flash to my background diffuser so I can light it more evenly across the entire 40″ x 60″ diffuser.  This wasn’t crucial for this setup but for future setups where I will need to use the entire diffuser as a background, it will be very important.

Overall it was a great first start and gave me a few things to improve on and most importantly, it helped me nail down exactly what I need to do for a setup like this.

When people think of Florida, they tend to imagine Disney World, the beaches of Miami, maybe the Daytona 500, or possibly sunset in Malory Square in Key West. They might think of college football or wild spring break parties. Some imagine hurricanes and swamps teeming with vicious alligators, dangerous snakes, and blood thirsty mosquitos.

For me, Florida is my home. I grew up in Orlando and spent my childhood exploring the woods, the waters, and the beaches of the state, yet I have only seen a small portion. I haven’t spent more than few months at a time in the state since I was 18 and I am dying to get back and explore.

Florida has 161 state parks protecting nearly 800,000 acres across the state. It has a national preserve, two national seashores, three national forests, three national parks, one of which was the first national park to be created to preserve biodiversity rather than geological or geothermal resources. It has 29 national wildlife refuges, second only to California. It has over 5 million acres of land protected in the largest system of wildlife management areas in the country. Yet despite all of this, when most people think of Florida they don’t think of nature except in a negative connotation as a dangerous swamp where you are sure to be eaten alive by a hungry gator.

This is my home state, despite not having lived there in the last decade. It is where my heart thrives. It is where my dreams lie. When I arrive in Florida after the long drive from New York and step into the woods my entire body relaxes and I am home, even if it is a particular location I have never been before. I want to change the way people look at Florida. I want to change the way people view Florida. I want to show people the Florida I love. I want to do it at across different types of media. It is an amazing state and needs to be shared.  I hope you’ll join me in this journey of exploration.