The myth of Cassiopeia

A couple years ago, I learned about the jellyfish known as the cassiopeia or upside down jellyfish. The name cassiopeia strikes up a vision of Greek mythology and lo and behold, Cassiopeia is not only a mythological queen that had terrible things happen to her (typical), but is a constellation. Back to earth, the cassiopeia jellyfish is common here in our warm south Florida waters. It particularly likes Biscayne Bay with its thick seagrasses and mud.

They are strange creatures because they don't appear like an animal at first. It is stunning to see hundreds of them laying on the seagrass floor in the shallow waters of the bay. They blend so well that if you didn't know what to look for, you might think they are grass. So why are they named after Cassiopeia? Apparently, Poseidon tied the queen to a chair that spins around in the heavens and half the time, Cassiopeia is upside down as she spins around. It all sounds ridiculous but it's intriguing that someone decided to name the jellyfish after the upside down queen. Indeed, when the jellyfish lays on the ground, it is upside down. To give you a visual, here is an image of one.

The jellyfish can often times be seen swimming at the surface of the water. With a few encounters, I've learned that they prefer sunlight or warmth when floating up to the surface. From my canoe, I have tried to capture them as they appear right side up and look like an alien space ship. It is very beautiful to see them move around the water and make ripples, such as with this one. But with the glare from the water, it is difficult to capture well.

 Ever since capturing the swimming cassiopeia, I have been wanting to take my 180mm macro lens with a polarizer filter attached to it out to the bay. The macro lens would allow me to get very close to the small jellyfish. And the polarizer filter would take the glare off the water. A couple mornings ago, I finally got that chance. I paddled a mile and half to an area where I knew the sea floor would be carpeted with the upside down jellyfish. How amazing to paddle over thousands of them; they completely covered the bottom! I wanted to stake out my boat in the shallow water and sit in one place while jellyfish surrounded me as they came up to the surface.

The area I staked out in was so shallow that the seagrasses stuck out of the water. This is where I found dozens of jellyfish at the surface of the water among the thick grasses. This was not exactly what I wanted as the grasses tend to look very messy. But with the macro lens, I could get inches away from a jellyfish and fill the frame. From about 7:30 am to about 10:30, I knelt in my canoe and faced downward toward the water with my camera and lens.

The jellyfish displayed very interesting shapes and colors, some more transluscent that others, some with bright white markings, some with blues and yellows. The translucence allowed light to pass through in beautiful ways, giving them an ethereal appearance. With the sun relatively high in the sky, the polarizer worked well. Moving into various positions, I adjusted the polarizer lens constantly. Without it, the bright translucence would have been missed.

I had so much fun photographing the jellyfish. The next best thing to an underwater camera set-up, the macro lens and polarizer filter did the job. Looking forward to another attempt at capturing the mysterious and striking cassiopeia jellyfish.

Strike A Pose

For many years, I have chased wading birds along the western shoreline of Biscayne Bay. In my attempts to capture them, I look for certain elements before I begin shooting. First, morning sunlight on the mangrove shoreline is the natural light I rely upon. The warm light on the green leaves and brown roots is exquisite and provides a beautiful environment for a bird. Often, I cannot get close enough to a bird to fill the frame, so the surroundings are what I look for in an image.

 Second, I hope for calm waters so that the reflections from the mangroves can leave a smooth impressionist painting on the surface.

Third, the water levels must be just right, sometimes high enough to provide undisturbed pools of water that surround the bird, allowing the mangrove reflections to take over.

And yet other times, the water is so low that the entire shoreline is a carpet of seagrass which can add color and texture to the composition.

And fourth, I want to capture the action of the bird, especially the egret or heron that strikes the water with exactness and amazing speed. Once I have found a particular bird to capture (based on above criteria), I stick with it as long as possible, attempting to capture it in the best light. The sun is typically over my left or right shoulder, never directly behind me. I want a little side light to highlight the details of the beautiful feathers of the bird.

Once the bird is in good light, I track it, keeping my focus on its eye as much as possible. I use a focal length that places the bird's entire body in the frame with more room in front of the bird than behind it and the head near the center. This works well with autofocus that is most sensitive in the center point.

When the bird is busy catching prey, I can keep my boat in one place as long as it does not react to my presence. Most of the time, the water is shallow enough that I can hold the boat in place with both feet in the water. Some birds, such as the reddish egret, cover a wider territory and this requires that I move my boat in order to stay with the bird. Once I am in position, I anticipate the bird's movement by a change in its posture. I try to relax and be as steady as possible, keeping my finger on the shutter release and moving only to maintain continuous focus on the bird's head. Some birds, such as the little blue heron will get its beak close to the water and move its neck back and forth a few times before striking. Then it lifts its head quickly before a downward strike.  As soon as I sense it is about to strike, I begin clicking away.

At home, I go through all the images, which can be hundreds (5-10 frames just from one strike) and remove those that are not adequately sharp or if the bird was turned away from the camera. I choose those that offer the most drama in terms of water splashes and/or the bird's prey in its beak. The surroundings will also factor into my decision to keep an image.

The best attribute for capturing wading birds in action is patience. It doesn't matter what kind of camera you own, it's about taking your time and observing the surroundings. With all these elements in mind, Biscayne Bay or other beautiful mangrove shorelines can provide endless opportunities to capture the awesome egret or heron that will strike a pose for you.

Photographing Brown Pelicans in Flight: Part 2

"If I had to choose, I would rather have birds than airplanes." Charles Lindbergh

In the previous blog, the importance of knowing your bird and basic bird flight mechanics was discussed. The point to emphasize is that much time in the field and countless shots are necessary to improve your bird flight images. That latter statement probably goes without saying, but implied in the meaning is that this often requires you to sit (stand) in one place for long periods of time. In other words, you must learn to anticipate your shots and be patient. Even after going back to the same rookery dozens of times over several years, I still anticipate capturing a better shot than the previous.

Knowledge of your subject will help you get there; after that it's all about how you use your camera. First, the lens. I mentioned in the previous post that I can fill the frame with a flying pelican from a distance over 100 feet using a 400mm lens. Clearly, a telephoto lens is essential to photograph birds in a rookery. The distance between you and them will be necessarily great (there are exceptions of course). Recommending a specific brand or model of telephoto lens is not my place. But I can share with you my preferences. Since I am in a canoe, I prefer a handheld lens with a focal length of at least 400mm. And in the case of the bird rookery where sometimes I require less than 400mm, I prefer the flexibility of a zoom lens over a fixed prime lens.

At this particular rookery, I go back and forth photographing white-feathered egrets and brown pelicans. Because of the differences in feather color, I have to adjust the exposure constantly. On average (with some variation of course), adult brown pelicans require about 2/3 to 1 stop more light. For example, here are two images taken within about six minutes of each other. The exposures settings for the brown pelicans were aperture = f8, shutter speed = 1/1250 and ISO = 640. A few minutes later, I changes my settings to capture a snowy egret. To do this I increased the shutter speed to 1/2000, a reduction in light by 2/3 stop.

A few things about exposure. First, brown pelicans do have white feathers. Consequently, you run the risk of blowing out the whites when exposing for the brown feathers. As always with the camera, there is a compromise. It is often recommended that if you err in exposure, err on the side of overexposing. This is because it is easier to darken slightly overexposed white feathers than it is to lighten dark feathers that are too dark. Details in a slightly overexposed white feather can be saved with some selective burning (darken). On the other hand, if you underexpose dark or shadowed feathers, it is near impossible to get back any detail. The best way to figure this out on your camera is of course, trial and error. Most importantly, get use to referring to your histogram when you begin shooting and then make the correct adjustments before continuing.

Another point about exposure is that while I prefer manual mode, aperture priority mode might work as well in these conditions most of the time. The reason being is that when I change the exposure, I change shutter speed and keep the aperture constant. That is essentially what aperture priority mode does for you automatically. So why don't I use that? One reason is I prefer to be in total control over my exposure settings and depth of field. Sometimes, I need a greater depth of field to get an entire bird in focus or when there are more than one bird in the scene. To change depth of field, I must change the aperture setting. Here is an example where I would prefer a depth of field that is great enough to get the chicks and parent in focus.

The final point about exposure has to do with time. Typically I begin shooting at the rookery minutes following sunrise and continue shooting until about 10 am. As the sun rises higher, it offers a greater amount of light. Generally, I want to keep my shutter speeds at or above 1/500 (with a focal length of 400mm, the minimum speed should be 1/400) and prefer at least 1/1000. With aperture settings between f5.6 to f9.0, I need to begin the morning with relatively high ISO settings, beginning with 800 and eventually decreasing to 400 or less. Occasionally, I will go higher than 1000. Here is an image taken minutes after sunrise at an aperture of f5.6 and shutter speed of 1/500 and ISO at 800. Notice the bird has a foot missing.

In summary, exposure settings should include relatively fast shutter speeds (1/500 minimum, preferably 1/1000 to 1/2000), wide apertures with some depth of field (up to f9.0 works well for my camera) and be prepared to use high ISOs (above 400) especially during early morning light.

Once I have my images downloaded and sorted, I begin the post-processing stage for each image. Typically, it may be nothing more than simple dodging (lightening) of selective areas that are slightly underexposed. With birds in flight, it is almost inevitable that some portion of the bird will be shadowed. This is why early morning hours are best for flight shots as the sun lights up the underside of the wings and torso. Basically, the angle of sunlight will determine the location and amount of shadows on the bird.

Here is an example of a pelican captured during early morning. Notice that with this banking position, all the bird's feathers and torso are in good light; very little selective dodging was needed for this image.

You will see changes in your images throughout the morning as the angle of the sun increases. You can try to minimize the shadows by positioning yourself with the sun behind you and slightly to your left or right, and avoiding harsh overhead lighting that comes in late morning hours. The bird's position will also affect the outcome. As an example in the image below, the bird's body was turned enough toward the sun (which was to my right and slightly high) to illuminate the torso and most of the tail feathers and left scapular feathers. The primary and secondary wing feathers were in a horizontal flat position, which caused the underside of them to be shadowed.

Selective dodging of shadowed areas should lighten up the shadows enough to bring out the details. To illustrate how that might look, here are before and after images. Note the details in the shadowed torso are seen with some dodging to that area.

Here is another example where angle of the sun affected the shot. The sun was obviously to my left, but with correct exposure and selective dodging, details in the feathers were maintained.

Capturing a bird in flight is one of the most challenging tasks for a bird photographer, but for obvious reasons can be the most rewarding. The bottom line is, practice, practice, practice. At the very least, you'll have fun watching the birds.

"It's impossible to explain creativity. It's like asking a bird, 'How do you fly?' You just do it". Eric Jerome Dickey

Photographing Brown Pelicans in Flight: Part 1

Since 2009, I have had the great joy of photographing nesting brown pelicans in the Everglades. Each spring, I paddle out to the rookery as many times as possible and spend several hours at a time sitting in my canoe while attempting to capture scenes that include pelicans flying to and from the nest. So how does one capture large brown pelicans in flight from a canoe? If bird photography is your interest, you may find some good tips here on shooting birds in flight.

Consider these three things when attempting to improve your flight shots; knowledge of birds, camera technique, and post-processing of images. For this blog, I will begin with the first point which is,  know your bird. Watch it and study it. To get the best flight shot possible, it is essential that you do this. You can say that about any photography subject, but with birds in flight, understanding bird behavior and the dynamics of flight are most important. In this regard, keep these three points in mind.

• Birds will mostly land and take off into the wind.
• When landing, birds will go from a horizontal to a vertical position and use their wings as a parachute to slow down. When landing, a bird will appear to hover as it stretches its legs and feet forward and fans out its tail feathers that point downward (as seen in the photo above, for example).
• Nesting birds will demonstrate a fairly consistent flight pattern and schedule.

I plan my mornings at the rookery when there is an expected easterly breeze. This means both the sun and wind are to my back and the birds will be landing and taking off toward me. This is important because to me, the best flight shots are when the bird is facing the camera and wings are open, and the sunlight captures the underside of the wings. During landing, I can capture a bird with full wing spread, including tail feathers, out-stretched feet and eyes facing the camera. During early morning hours, the sun will light up those beautiful wings and provide a nice catch light in the eyes, a glorious thing to see.

A few hundred feet away from the birds, I get my camera out and ready for use. I always have a lens cloth in my pocket if needed. I close the pelican case and then begin slowly paddling closer to the birds. As I paddle, I am watching the rookery, looking for nests and adults flying to and from. After a few minutes or so, I can determine where I will focus my attention, typically a busy nest. I then proceed to a location where I have good light on the subject and where I can anchor or stake out the boat easily without making undue noise or commotion. Typically, I station my boat about 70-100 feet away from the subject. Once in place, I rarely move to another location and will stay there for several hours.

To get the best flight shots, consider the distance between you and your subject. The first and most obvious point is that you do not want to get too close to the birds to disturb them. Through trial and error, you learn that birds have a species-specific comfort zone and if you cross that line, they will react. So get use to keeping a large distance between you and the birds (there are exceptions such as boardwalks where nesting birds are sometimes within 20 feet of a camera).

My second point here is that the ability to fill your frame with a pelican in full wing spread will depend on three things, the distance between you and the bird, your maximum focal length and your camera's sensor size (cropped or full frame). A cropped sensor digital camera will essentially make the bird appear closer in the frame compared to a full frame sensor camera. My camera, the Sony a77 has a 1.5x cropped sensor that can make a 400mm focal length look like 600mm. The good thing about brown pelicans is they have a wing span of 6-8 feet. This means that with my camera, I can fill the frame with an 8-ft wing span from a distance slightly greater than 100 feet. At the rookery, I am sometimes within 40-50 feet of a flying bird and use focal lengths of 250mm or less to capture it's wing spread (this is why a zoom lens is preferred over a fixed prime lens). In fact, clipping the wings is a common occurrence for me as I fail to zoom in enough to capture the entire wing span. The bottom line is, you need a significant focal length lens (400mm or higher depending on the camera's sensor size) in order to keep your distance from the birds. The good side of brown pelicans is they are large and can fill your frame from a great distance.

As you watch the birds, you will notice flight patterns. This is particularly the case for the male pelican that flies into the nest with a branch in its beak every 10-15 minutes. At the rookery I photograph, there may be a half dozen nests within my range of sight. After some observation, I can distinguish a bird from another simply by its flight path. As a result, I concentrate on the nest (sometimes two nests) that are in best light and have clear surroundings so I may capture the incoming bird without distracting mangroves or other birds. As the male pelican arrives with a branch, the female reacts by raising her head and opening her beak so that the male can pass off the branch to her. The male will stay in the nest for about 5-10 minutes before it flies off again on its quest for a branch. Within a couple hours, I can capture several hundred frames of birds flying into their nest.

With that much opportunity to photograph a pelican in flight, over time I have greatly narrowed my acceptance rate. Pelicans in flight or in landing present few variations of poses and after awhile images can look repetitive. I first narrow down my images using the following criteria. To keep an image, all criteria must be met:

adequate sharpness, especially on the face
at least one eye in the light
near perfect to perfect exposure
no object (like a mangrove branch) covering the bird
sunlight on the underside of the wings
bird is flying into the camera

In the field, I shoot with all above points in mind. Afterwards, I look for something special about each image to set it apart from the rest. It may be the exquisite lighting or it may be an interesting branch in the bird's beak. Clouds in the sky can add to the composition and an interaction with another bird can be fun as well.

The best way to go about photographing birds in flight is practice, practice, practice. Even if you take 100 photos and find only one that is worth keeping, your experience is more valuable than the images produced. Next blog, I will talk about camera technique including exposure and will touch a bit on post-processing strategies to enhance your image of the beautiful brown pelican in flight.

Adding Ripples to the Water

Naturally, photography from a canoe means that most of my images will contain water in them. And because the shoreline of south Florida from the Gulf to Atlantic is primarily lined with mangroves, these are also a big part of my photography. It is a constant challenge to photograph mangroves and water in a fresh way. But, I keep trying. The other morning, I set up to capture some sunrise scenes on Biscayne Bay and located a single small mangrove to work with. I lined up with it so the tree stood between me and the impending sunrise. I examined the scene from various positions, estimating where the sun would appear relative to the tree. If I stood up, the horizon line would be above the little tree, if I crouched down, it fell behind the dense leaves. I decided to work with the latter.

This would be luxury as I would set up the tripod in the water while I sat in the boat with my legs over the side and feet on the ground (shallow waters here). I decided to experiment with water movement. By gently rocking the canoe, I created water ripples that would appear at the bottom of the composition and continue traveling toward the mangrove. Without filters, I set the exposure with a shutter speed of 1/4 sec, aperture at f11 and ISO400. I wanted a slow enough shutter speed to give the water a smooth appearance, but not too slow as to dampen the ripples.

I rocked the canoe gently and evenly in order to create ripples that were evenly spaced. Fast and short motions created thin ripples with little distance between them, such as the image above. For the most part, I liked the effect, but there is some unevenness and the ripples continue on toward the horizon. So I continued playing. You can see in the next image the ripples are wider and all but disappeared toward the middle of the composition. The shutter speed was 1/2 sec this time, which smoothed out the ripples. I liked it.

By now, the sun was beginning to appear and it was getting lighter. I put the filters on, a total of 5 stops. Below is a typical image, using a shutter speed of 3.2 sec. I decreased the aperture size to an extreme end, f22. With a narrow opening, light entering through the lens becomes diffracted or bent. This in turn creates points of light. This would make it possible to capture a sunburst as it appeared behind the leaves. The effect of the slow shutter speed was quite nice on the water, but I was not able to get that burst effect on the sun as I wanted.

I went back to making ripples. This time, I kept the aperture at f22 and increased the shutter speed to 0.4 sec (increased the ISO to compensate). I repositioned the camera so the sun would have more space around it. The result is seen below. I was pleased with the ripples, gentle yet dynamic and quietly disappearing into the middle of the composition. And the sun rays are noticeable around the mangrove. I love it! Could this image be improved? Of course! I don't like the dark line of water just below the horizon line and maybe the stringy marine debris hanging from the mangrove is unattractive. But, I do like the horizontal ripples against the vertical mangrove roots.

I really enjoy these little experimental sessions. This prompts me to go back out there and refine the "ripple technique" and search for creative ways to use it. That's what it's all about, creating through a camera lens.

I know an anole

"Artists see the world through different eyes to most people; they see the beauty in things that may be considered boring or mundane". Nicholas Huggins

In Miami, a wildlife photographer has endless opportunity to photograph animals. Many of these animals are very common and easily seen as mundane. If you have lived in the area for any amount of time, without any research at all, you might conclude that one of the most common (mundane) animals is the anole lizard. Consequently, it is easy to overlook as an exciting photo subject.

Recently, I spent several hours on an overcast day at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, one of my favorite urban places to photograph. While plants are the main draw to the gardens, I inevitably spend most of my time hunting for lizards and spiders, and occasionally birds. Usually it is the orange-headed adult male agama lizard or the green iguana that I am after. I tend to ignore the "mundane" smaller brown or green anole because every time I notice one, it is in the same position. Currently, Chihuly glass art is installed throughout the park. These colorful pieces provide another surface for the expert climbing anole to cling to. With that, I thought I might be able to turn the mundane into something more exciting.

The anoles were everywhere that day and they love the glass. An interesting observation was that the Chihuly pieces installed among the cacti appeared to be designed like cacti. But as I observed the anoles, I began to think that maybe Chihuly had lizards in mind when he created these pieces. As an example, take a look at this image of the brown anole and its dewlap.

Anole is a type (genus) of lizard and is the most common and abundant in Miami. Among the anole species, the green anole is the only one that is native here. The others primarily come from the Caribbean. It seems that the non-native brown anole has taken over and in fact, is one cause of a reduced number of green anole. Apparently, the brown eats the green anole eggs.

An interesting fact about the anole is that it molts in pieces and will eat its shedding skin as a source of calcium. Here is an image of a molting brown anole, similar to the first image above.

Anoles have toepads that are large scales on the underside of fingers and toes. They contain hairlike structures called setae that allow the lizard to cling to smooth surfaces, like glass. Take a look at the next two images to see those toepads in action.

And here are two more images, both of a crested anole that has just captured a dragonfly while hunting on a Chihuly glass.

As nature or wildlife photographers, we are challenged to be creative in order to set our images apart from the rest. One way to do that is to go after the mundane animal (you know, the one that will always be available to you) and capture it in an extraordinary way. At the very least, spend some time getting to know your little neighbors. They may be more exciting than they appear.

Let the Ball Drop

"Buying a Nikon doesn't make you a photographer. It makes you a Nikon owner." Author Unknown

As photographers, we are always looking to improve and capture a better image. To do this, you need clear goals and objectives, and you need to go out there and collect data. And learn to juggle. Say what?

First, goals and objectives are the foundation of what I do as a scientist and teacher. Data collection, interpretation and dissemination are all part of the process. This sounds mundanely academic (and it is) but fortunately, these useful skills have spilled over into my photography. While the term "data collection" appears as far removed from art as a statistics textbook, it is an essential part of the artistic process and does not require formal training. Artists, like scientists collect data in the process of learning their craft. Having clear direction or goals serves to help the artist achieve his or her artistic vision.

We can have a goal in mind; for instance, become a better landscape photographer. But to achieve the goal, we need data. Data collection is information gathering and experimentation, and then successfully making order out of the chaotic pieces of information and experience. This is, for all intents and purposes, the act of learning. From chaos comes order or a higher level of understanding and new skills (our goal). And then we apply all these to our art and create a better landscape image. But, the most important aspect to all of this is that we stay committed and continually set new goals. What this means is that we have to frequently put ourselves in the uncomfortable position of failure and make mistakes. 

"We adore chaos because we love to produce order". M. C. Escher

So what does all this have to do with juggling? Twenty years ago, I read a book titled "Lessons From the Art of Juggling" by Michael J, Gelb and Tony Buzan. Not only did I learn to juggle, but I learned to teach myself how to juggle. Perhaps the most poignant tip from the book was simply, "let the ball drop". Rather than lunging toward it, let it fall to the ground was the first lesson. In short time, I learned to throw the ball with one hand so that it landed perfectly into the motionless waiting hand. Can you see how this becomes a metaphor to photography?

"You don't learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over." Richard Branson

When I began photographing the wilderness in earnest over a decade ago, I knew practically nothing about photography. I would go out there with the camera not knowing what I was doing and just shoot, shoot, shoot. Taking pictures was like juggling. Many times, I lunged at the poorly thrown ball. This may be a metaphor for taking a bad image and trying to "photoshop" it into something better. I realized quickly that I had to improve my use of the camera. In other words, I had to improve how I threw the ball.  

"If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" Albert Einstein

So I plunged into research and experimentation and approached photography like a scientist. I put myself out there for criticism. I began communicating with experts and taking workshops. And as often as I could, I photographed for the sake of photographing. Sometimes, I got very frustrated and had feelings of inadequacy that came and went frequently. One day, I would proudly display an image that looked exciting and bold, and the next day it appeared dull and flat. And there was always another photographer that made it look so easy, who seemingly never failed.

"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it". Pablo Picasso

I go further into this year with two clear goals and have developed specific objectives to help me achieve them. Neither goal is directly related to winning contests, getting into an art festival, or selling more prints. Instead, my goals are to improve my craft and my art. Have you considered your photography goals? I challenge you to leap out of your comfort zone and learn a new camera skill, experiment with a new genre, study up on digital camera sensor technology, post an image on a critique forum, ask questions, just try something new and challenging. And don't be afraid to let the ball drop.

"I'm still learning". Michelangelo