One of the goals of any nature photographer is to have an image published. I have had several of my images published on web sites, presentations, magazines, and books. My winning image titled “The Chase” was recently published in the Spring 2009 edition of Audubon of Florida’s magazine Florida Naturalist (PDF).

However, I’ve always thought of my style of wildlife photography to lean towards publication in some sort of guide book. Much of my youth was spent pouring through field guide after field guide on birds and reptiles and it has undoubtedly had an influence on my work as a nature photographer. So I am pleased that one of my juvenile Black-necked Stilt images from last summer was selected and recently published in the guide Shorebirds of the Northern Hemisphere by Richard Chandler. The book itself is a terrific guide to shorebirds, showing images of both young and adult birds as well as many behavioral images including flight for many species.

Finally I’ve just published an article “Tips on learning how to photograph Birds in Flight” over at the Everglades Photographic Society web site. I’m planning for it to be part one in a series of three updated articles on photographing birds in flight.

Labels: Book, EPS, Flight Photography, Shorebirds, Technique

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.

Labels: Arthur Marshall Foundation, Education, EPS, FAU, Loxahatchee, Sisbro, Take A Walk

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…

Labels: Articles, EPS, FAU, flickr, Green Cay, Wakodahatchee

Well things don’t always turn out the way you plan them. I’ve been at home sick for most of the month of May. My daughter brought home a cold that only lasted about five days for most people that caught it, but for me it turned into a throat and upper respiratory infection that kept me indoors most of the time. On the upside, I finally got to finish a couple of those X-box games that have been sitting on my shelf. The downside is that the gallery has been sparse lately.

However, another upside to all of this is that I’ve had some time to work on re-launching the Everglades Photographic Society (EPS) website. There are three fantastic articles on the site by fellow EPS members, for you to read and comment on. I will be publishing several articles on photography on the EPS website later in the year, and if things go as planned I will be producing a couple of video tutorials as well. At this time we hope to have regular updates every other month, so look for all new material on the EPS website again in August. Don’t forget to comment on the articles and let us know what you think.

Labels: EPS, Photography, Technique