Least Grebes

First posted on the Tropical Audubon Society’s Bird Board last week, a pair of Least Grebes has recently been located at the Yamato Scrub Natural Area in Boca Raton, Florida. The pair had a nest with two eggs, and the first chick hatched on the morning of September 29, 2008. The second hatched the following morning on September 30th. This is the first documented nest of a Least Grebe in Florida. The Least Grebe is a resident of the Caribbean and is only occasionally sighted in Florida. The last confirmed sighting was in Key Deer National Wildlife refuge in 1988. So it is a thrill for many birders to be able to see this bird in South Florida, let alone to find it breeding here.

On October 2nd the grebes abandoned their original nest and built a new nest in an area of denser vegetation. The grebes are wary of people, but don’t seem disturbed by all the attention they are getting. The nest was probably moved due to threats from predators such as raccoons. These grebes also defend the nest vigorously. They are constantly chasing away Common Moorhens and Mottled Ducks from the areas surrounding their nest. The adults have been taking turns caring for the two chicks, which often ride on an adult’s back.

Take an Educational Walk

An image from the June Gallery of the Snail Kites nesting at Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge has recently been published in a book for young readers called “Take A Wetlands Walk” by Jane Kirkland. The book is a great introduction to wetland habitats, animals, and plants. It is part of a series of Take a Walk Books, and can be purchased on Amazon.com. The Snail Kite picture appears on the bottom of page 23.

Back in July of 2007, I wrote about a boating trip with Sisbro Studios for an educational book and DVD that they were working on. Well it’s about to be released soon and you can see the trailer for “The Riddle in a Bottle” at the Sisbro Studios web site.

Finally, on October 18th and 25th, I and other members of the Everglades Photographic Society will be participating in the Arthur R. Marshall Foundation’s Student Photography Project. If you are a photographer who would like to volunteer for this project, please contact Susanna Laurenti.

Beyond the Technical

I read a fair amount of books, blogs, and listen to several podcasts on photography. A common thread these days seem to be a thirst by many readers and listeners for formulaic “how to” information. As if photography was a “one size fits all” activity. It’s not. Photography is creativity, and you can’t put a formula on creativity. Photography is art, and again, you can’t put a formula on art. But like, art, there is a technical side to photography. In order to paint you need to learn how to mix colors, and handle a paintbrush, and take advantage of the type of media you are painting on. Similarly photography has shutter speeds, aperture, ISO, and depth-of-field that photographers must master to excel in their craft.

The popularity of this “how to” information clearly shows that photographers are eager for information about the basics. However, many never really move beyond the basics because they become overly concerned with the technicalities of taking a picture. Shutter speed, aperture, ISO, depth-of-field; how do they all relate to one another? How do I know which variable to change to get the image I want to create? This is where the majority of hobbyists get stuck, in the details. So books and the Internet have tried to fill this gap with information and tutorials. Magic formulas for given situations. Many do a great job of teaching you how to take a shot under given set of conditions, but few venture on to explain why. Therein lays the problem. It is easy to explain “how”, but a lot more difficult to explain the “why”, because “how” is technical but “why” is purely creative. It is in understanding the “why” that lets a photographer move beyond the basics.

A famous artist can teach you how to create a brush stroke, he may not be able to impart to you the creativity needed to take full advantage of using that painting technique. It’s much easier for him to simply have you create a similar image along side of him so that you can experience the same circumstances and learn when he uses that particular brush stroke. Through having shared experiences he hopes that you will pick up on his creativity. In photography you can’t always share the experience with an expert. There are many who offer workshops, but often they have equipment that is different from yours. Also, is a one, two, three, or five day workshop enough to move you beyond the basics? It’s probably not, at least not enough to overcome old habits.

So what’s a struggling digital photographer to do? We’ll here’s the secret to moving beyond those basics, practice. That’s it. Forget about creativity for a while. Forget about trying to get images similar to those of a photographer whom you admire. Spend a few weeks, just practicing the basics. Start with one variable at a time. Lock in the rest, and go shoot. Spend a day changing only the shutter speed. See its effects. Do the same for aperture, then ISO, etc. In this way you are creating your own experiences, and learning each variable on its own. By seeing what each of these items do on their own, you will get a feel for how they each affect the final image. Soon you’ll find that your creative side will take over, and it will combine all of these variables and start creating images the way you intended them to be.

You see, too much is made of the interrelation of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, and depth-of-field. Many people have trouble with these concepts because they are trying to understand it from a technical point of view, when it’s not. The individual pieces (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, depth-of-field) are technical. So you need to understand what each does individually. However, how they relate to one another and how to use them together is purely creative.

Assiduous August

Hello everyone. I sincerely apologize for the lack of updates to this site recently. It’s been an incredibly busy couple of months. The searing heat, high humidity, and summer thunderstorms have kept me from photographing for most of August.

I’ve also been very busy with work relating to several initiatives that the Everglades Photographic Society (EPS) have undertaken. EPS will have a booth at this year’s birding festival in Titusville, Florida and I hope to have some additional great news in the very near future. If you haven’t been to the EPS site lately, please stop by. There are some terrific articles on the site and many more are on the way.

I have also been incredibly busy at work, preparing for the fall semester at FAU. August 23rd was the official day that classes started, but Monday, August 25th is when all of that hard work on the computer systems over the summer actually starts to pay off, or not.

I’ve also recently done a few more photo shoots of people; a couple of aspiring models and also an aspiring musician. Those images take much longer to process as they often involve hours of work in Photoshop. Not that the images are overly manipulated, but it’s about striking that balance between making the subject look their best, yet keeping the retouching as subtle as possible. It takes a lot of work to achieve that balance. Whereas in nature photography I’m usually trying to simply keep the images exactly as I saw it, with people you’re trying to make the image as close to how the client envisioned it. A lot of work, and so far I’ve been doing it for free, but probably not for too much longer.

Amy and I are also expecting our next child in February. Our daughter Arwen just recently turned 3 years old and she’s been a bundle of energy. From morning to midnight we get no rest from her and so coupled with the pregnancy we’re busier than ever at home too.

As you can see things are going well, so thank you to those that have written me with concerns about my well being. I’m still here, just busier than ever. In the computer industry there’s a saying that the personal web page of the best web designers are always in need of updating, because they’re too busy working on other people’s web sites. That’s not unlike many situations I always find myself in.

There is a disturbing trend that I am seeing regarding the feeding of juvenile Purple Gallinules at Wakodahatchee and Green Cay. Visitors are removing the flowering stalks of the Fire Flag and using them to try to lure the juvenile gallinules to feed from their hands. When you do this, you are destroying the Fire Flag blooms causing them to decay more rapidly and thus reducing the amount of available food for the gallinules that feed on them. Not only that, but you are endangering the health and well being of the gallinules by making them look towards humans as a food source. This type of behavior by visitors would not be tolerated at a National Park or Wildlife Refuge, and I’m pretty sure it’s not legal. So please do not feed the juvenile gallinules and if you see anyone doing so, please ask them to stop. Remember that these places are there to help protect wildlife populations in the area.

Since I’m such a glutton for creating more work for myself, please remember that you can always e-mail me your nature photography related questions, or better yet post those questions on the EPS flickr group. Thanks, and I’ll see you out there, whenever I get around to going out again…

The Chase

“The Chase” 1^st Place Winner in the Florida’s Avian Wonders category of the Orange Audubon Society’s 2008 (20^th Annual) Kit and Sidney Chertok Nature Photography Contest.

Taken on March 1^st, 2008 with a Canon EOS 40D and Canon 400mm f/5.6 USM L lens @ f/5.6, 1/1250s, ISO 200, Aperture Priority mode, hand held, at the Green Cay Wetlands.

My dad was last year’s first place winner in the birds category, and I have won third place and a couple honorable mentions in the past; but this year I finally won a first place award. Mind you, this was not the image I was expecting to win. I thought that my image of a Snowy Plover with a newly hatched chick would win out over this one, but it seems that the judges thought differently. I am glad that this image won, because it exemplifies everything that I preach about nature photography.

First of all it is an image of a Common Moorhen, which is perhaps one of the most common marsh birds in the world.

Second, it is a behavioral shot that tells you that this bird is fiercely territorial.

Thirdly, it is an image that I had envisioned in my mind for a long time. I had originally wanted to take a similar shot with American Coots, but those attempts never turned out the way that I wanted. However, whenever I saw a few moorhens, gallinules, or coots gathered in one area I always positioned myself at an angle where I could take a shot like the one above. A lot of patience and persistence paid off, and after six months of actively trying, I was able to get a result very close to what I had imagined.

Finally, I took this image with my Canon 40D, and Canon 400mm f/5.6 USM L lens; a very affordable combination for many beginning nature photographers, proving that you can get great images without completely breaking the bank.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattening

Snail Kites

There are several pairs of Snail Kites nesting in and around the Marsh Trail at Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge. I’ve decided that this will be my summer project, to document the nest and eventually the fledgling kites, so you will probably see the gallery dominated by this one species. Of course if you’ve been a regular visitor here, you already know that the Snail Kite is one of my favorite species to photograph.

If you are interested in photographing the nesting kites at Loxahatchee, please keep the following in mind.

1. Many of the nests are too far away to see; only one nest is really visible from the Marsh Trail.


2. I recommend a minimum of a 400mm lens to be able to really get these birds large enough in the frame, and most of the time you will need a 500mm lens or more.


3. The visible nest is a morning shoot. The sun is just not in the correct position to be able to yield any good shots in the afternoon.


4. After about 7:30 in the morning the sun is blistering hot, and the gnats will swarm upon you. Wear insect repellant, sunscreen, and bring some water. You can easily become dehydrated out there. Also watch out for ants.


5. Finally, remember to be courteous to the other photographers and birders out there. Do not do anything that will disturb the kites. The Snail Kite is an endangered species in the Florida Everglades and it is illegal to disturb them.