Biscayne Bay is my best backyard

I was putting together some photographs to submit to Nature's Best Photography "Best Backyards" photo contest. Images can be created in public or private gardens or nearby parks or preserves. I had several from my own backyard, but I also included a couple images from Biscayne Bay. One of the places I launch from on the bay is Matheson Hammock Park, a county park. I typically paddle about 1/3 mile or more to photograph wading birds, but one day last summer I found several birds in a small area next to the launch site. The lighting was beautiful. Normally, the area around the launch site is unappealing for various reasons, most of which it is kind of muddy and messy.

But that morning with the lighting, I noticed that the birds were surrounded by black mangrove roots, which I find to be intriguing. They are finger-shaped roots that stick straight up from the mud; very different from the red mangrove roots (as in the photo right above). What made it more appealing is that the trees were on a mud bank and the roots were relatively high above the water. When I composed a shot, I found that the entire frame was filled with the mangrove roots and their reflections. Nearby, I found a background of red mangrove roots exposed at low tide that also filled the frame and surrounded the bird.  From the small amount of time I had to photograph birds in this one area, I created what turned out to be some of my favorite images of wading birds. The best part was I did not have to paddle far, like being in my own backyard.

Here are a few of those images. For the white ibis above, I darkened its surroundings to highlight it and its cool looking reflection. Enjoy these images of birds from "my backyard".

Bully birds

 

It's been a long time since I sat in my canoe on Chokoloskee Bay and paddled no further than the pilings that line parts of the island. On both Saturday and Sunday, I paddled less than 2 miles, despite the near perfect conditions. I did not expect much to photograph with an incoming tide that basically covers all the oyster flats where wading birds might be found. I figured I would paddle around and not much else. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised to get the opportunity to spend both mornings with the sandwich terns that provide one of my favorite scenes. How could a common seabird be so interesting to photograph? See for yourself with several images I post here. This time of year, the sandwich terns are found in great number around Chokoloskee Bay. With an incoming tide, they roost near the marina, so all I have to do is paddle about 30 feet or so. With dozens of them, it is a fun spectacle to watch as birds fight for a 6-in circumference piling space. To add interest, they are among other larger birds, the laughing gull and royal tern. And of course, there are the brown pelican.

 

So for about 3 hours or so both mornings, I staked out near the pilings as the water rose. Some small amount of wind and current moved my boat around on occasion, but mostly it was calm. It is a challenge to photograph this scene. First, the birds are mostly at least 12 feet above me. This is not ideal as the sun rises and the under-wings become more and more shadowed. Second, while the winds may be calm, it is still difficult to keep the boat absolutely still because I need at least a few feet of water below my boat to minimize the vertical distance between me and the birds. With wading birds, I am often in shallow enough waters that I can anchor the boat with the ground or my feet. Third, because there are so many pilings, capturing the birds without distracting foregrounds and backgrounds is a challenge. Fourth, because the best way to photograph these birds is when they are landing onto a piling, the wind direction must be suited for the bird. In other words, you need the wind to your back so the bird can fly toward the camera. And fifth, the pilings are often very unattractive.

 

With all those challenges, I was able to capture several bird interactions with good light and ideal water conditions. On Sunday, I used my monopod to give my hands a break and that created an additional challenge, but eventually I got use to it. I also put the flash on the camera with the constant cloud cover, so this added more weight to the camera. At the end of the morning, I was satisfied knowing that I captured a handful of images with nice compositions, good light and ideal sharpness. Not an easy task given all the challenges presented. With these images, I always attempt to capture full wing spreads, some eye contact (particularly between birds), want to see the beaks on all the birds in the image, enough separation between birds to see each one, clean background and foreground, and ideally, a piling that is not distracting. Enjoy these images of the feisty sandwich terns.

 

 

 

 

 

Birds and Rules

Bird photographers know well the rules of bird photography that address such things as head angle (HA),catch light, lighting on the underside of the wings, cutting off the wings, background, foreground, etc, etc. Some take offense to these rules. Maybe it is the thought of "rules" being imposed on individual creativity that disturbs people. I would like to suggest a different perspective on the idea of rules in bird photography. Instead of seeing them as rules, let's consider them as nothing more than suggestions. Let's remove the stigma of "rules" and the basic drive to break them, and forget about photography and its techniques. Instead, let's dwell on the subject, birds.

Think what might attract us most to birds, could it be the feathers and their ability to fly? Why not attempt to photograph birds in a way that will display those beautiful feathers in the best way? Why wait until midday to photograph a bird in flight (I guess you can use fill flash to compensate for the lack of a beautiful morning light)? Why not get down to the eye level of a shorebird? Eye level perspective gives the photograph an intimacy that is lacking in those photographs where the photographer is standing and pointing the lens downward toward the bird. Put yourself at the birds level, capture its essence.

Why not learn as much as you can about birds or a particular bird that you wish to photograph? Why not attempt to capture the bird in its most beautiful light?

Learn its behaviors, learn to anticipate those moments when the bird will display its beautiful instinct of survival; catching a fish, displaying courtship, feeding its chicks, being territorial. Want to photograph birds? Spend some quality time with them and adapt to their schedules. Bird photography takes time, it takes patience and it requires respect for the birds. Rules have nothing to do with these things.

Preparing for a gallery exhibit, part 4: promoting your work online

I know next to nothing about marketing. But the reality is, I need to market my photography work if I want to sell it. Not only that, I have 35 prints ready to show in gallery exhibits (one in November, the other in March). What am I going to do with all those prints? Hopefully sell them! I do not mean any disrespect to the professionals nature photographers trying to make a living. So who am I to step into this world, especially being relatively new to it (I began less than 10 years ago) and think that people will buy or display my work? But here is what is driving my madness; I believe I have found a niche and have been validated with three upcoming gallery exhibits that are specific to The Everglades and Biscayne Bay. So maybe, just maybe I could take my madness to the next level. And maybe, someone reading this will find themselves in the same boat and this little blog might be of help to him or her.

The gallery exhibits will be a direct way of finding buyers, but I also need to set up an online site for ongoing sales as my work progresses, perhaps broadens and hopefully improves. Parallel to all the work put into the exhibits, I also had to work on marketing possibilities. With that, I have been completely disoriented with the business of online webhosting for photographers. It is mind blowing the amount of webhosting businesses that are out there. What are others using? That's the first step in figuring this out, no need to re-invent the wheel as there are as many websites as there are photographers selling their work. So I cruised around and checked out several artists' websites, and researched several webhosting businesses tailored to photographers. The first jolt of reality came when I looked at the cost.

I drew the conclusion that at this point, I cannot justify the cost of a professional-level website which can run into the thousands upfront and hundreds per year to maintain. However, I do want a website that will showcase my work and hopefully allow me to sell my prints. There appears to be several webhosts with reasonable costs, such as SmugMug. Right now, I am considering SmugMug which has a cost of only $60 per year for the power level (it allows sales). Comparatively speaking, this is quite cheap!

In the meantime, I already have a website that I created back in 2007 through Yahoo small business. I pay $13 per month for it. It is not designed for photographers and when I originally put it together it was not with the intention of showcasing my photography. Within the limitations of the site, I recently restructured it to advertise my gallery exhibits and provide links to my pbase galleries, which at this time are the only galleries I have online. Now, I need to move away from all that and create a site that is devoted to my photography, put my best foot forward and showcase those images I want to sell and/or help me gain some recognition.

I believe that the gallery exhibits, though small in scale, will be the first step toward recognition, but I need to prepare for the opportunities that may come from them. Therefore, it is so important that once I commit to a webhost site, I set it up the right way. I have spent a lot of money and time lately on my photography, so there is no room for wasting money or time. I hope that I may add another blog in the future that describes some successes in selling my work, and perhaps will share some of the pitfalls to avoid. The true test will be that by the end of next year, the prints that are currently being stored at home will all be gone and displayed in other public or private spaces.

Preparing for a gallery exhibit, part 3: printing and cost

As I mentioned earlier, a consideration I made when deciding on which images to show at the exhibit was the potential to sell. I may be way off the mark on some of the choices I made, but I tried to come up with several images that could best represent my work on Biscayne Bay.

So with that, I knew that I would have to lay some serious money down to get all my gallery images ready for hanging. I was fortunate to have found a fine art print shop in Miami (and only a short distance drive). The shop, Prints Giclee Shop is run by print professionals that are also artists. It's a small operation but they do it all; printing, framing, matting, canvas wrap and accommodate all sizes. During my first visit to the shop, I learned about my options and was given an initial price quote for various print and canvas sizes. Now I had a pretty good idea of what the total cost might run into and this would factor into my decision on print number and sizes and whether or not a print would be framed or wrapped. There are lots of choices that go into the final product, and the combination of choices ultimately determines the cost.

For printing, I decided to go with the more expensive fine art paper vs photographic paper. In my opinion, the type of paper can make or break an image and it also has to do with durability. Concerning frames, I decided to go with relatively inexpensive wood  mold black frames. For some images, I will include matting. Like the paper, I believe the matting can make or break an image, so I will go with quality matting and work with the artists at the print shop in deciding on mat type.

Within my budget and always with the intention of trying to sell each piece, I had to decide on the less costly option of canvas wraps. It works out to be about 20% less than framing a print. I also think canvas wraps are more appealing to some because frame and mat choices can differ individually. For the wraps, I am using 1 1/2" thick frame. You can go with a narrower or thicker width and it affects the cost somewhat. The printers at the shop use a museum-wrap technique whereby the image expands into the sides. This is initially done in Photoshop by either mirror-imaging the edges of the image or using content aware and expanding the image into the sides. Or, a solid color can take its place. Regardless, the entire image will be seen in the front and the sides will just be an expansion of sorts.

The advantage of using a printer in Miami is that I can go to the shop and study the proofs before they go into print. This is the most interesting part of the process for a couple reasons. One, I get to see the image on the fine art paper (I chose to use photometallic for all my prints). This gives the image another quality that is missing from the computer screen. But the best part is I get to work with the artist at the print shop. From the digital image, the printer works with it to enhance it in preparation for printing. This was most evident for those going onto canvas where some of the vibrance gets lost in the print. I can also look at the proof for any tiny flecks of distractions that can be easily removed.

Once proofed, the image goes into production. For the Biscayne gallery, I will have about 30 images on display. That's a large number of prints to sell! So, parallel to the work of getting the pieces ready for hanging, I also had to think about how I set up to sell my prints online or otherwise. For the next entry, I'll talk about the frustrating and expensive world of online photography gallery webhosting.

Preparing for a gallery exhibit, Part 2: choosing the images for display

If you have hundreds of photos to choose from, it becomes a daunting task to narrow them down to a handful to be exhibited. Naturally, we have our favorites and there may be a small handful that will, without a doubt, go into print. Because my exhibit will be specific to Biscayne Bay, I already have a relatively narrow focus, but I still had hundreds of images to review. I decided to create subcategories for these images and came up with about five categories (i.e, silhouettes, water, mangrove blurs). Because the gallery is quite large and I will have approximately 75 feet of horizontal wall space to work with, I could pretty much include a batch of images from each category and organize them on the walls accordingly. To help me make my choices, I asked a few people their opinion by giving them two or three to choose from at a time. This helped a great deal. Images take on a whole new look with a fresh eye.

 

I think, however, one of the most important factors in making my decision on which images will go into print is the goal of ultimately selling them. Seeing an image framed or wrapped hanging on a wall is much different from seeing it on a computer screen. Art fairs and galleries are the best places to show one's work, and therefore, the most likely places to help you sell your work. At least, that is my opinion. Personally, unless I have seen the artist's work in print already, I would not purchase an image if all I have to go by is what I see on a website and the artist has never shown his or her work. So with selling in mind, I chose my gallery prints.

The next step is to figure out how they will be displayed and in what sizes. For the sizes, I knew I wanted to hang images as large as 20x30, 12x36, and 16x32.  The size of the print is somewhat determined by the camera's resolution and quality of the image. Now-a-days, I use a camera with 24 mp and large prints look awesome with amazing resolution. From what I have seen in galleries, 16x20 or larger is common, but as small as 12x15 or 12x18 could work if mixed with larger images. It also depends on the type of images. For birds that fill the frame, I personally like them to be small to medium-sized (up to 16x24), and when the bird is part of a larger scene that includes other things like mangroves and grasses, a larger format (20x30 or more) can look great.

Once I figured out the sizes that I would use, I needed to work out a layout plan. Using my ipad, I downloaded a couple apps to help me with that. Photoshop on the computer also works well for this. With one app, I framed and matted some of my photos. With the other app, I drew the gallery walls with the correct dimensions, inserted the images, scaled them to size and moved them around. This was incredibly helpful to visualize the layout with the real images. I came up with several variations and went with the one I liked most.

The next step involves cost considerations, and where and how the images will be printed. That will be the next blog entry. Stay tuned.

Preparing for a gallery exhibition, Part 1: first step in choosing the images

I am currently preparing for three galleries, the first scheduled to hang in less than 3 months. The preparation process has been mind blowing and extremely intimidating. Maybe sharing my experiences can help another photographer new to the "business".

But first, one piece of advice for budding photographers; never forget those that have helped you some way or another. With that, I will pause and give thanks to all those individuals and groups (family, friends, acquaintances) that have helped me on this journey. There are too many to name because there are so many that have inspired me by sharing wilderness experiences in the Everglades, Biscayne Bay and Big Cypress. A special thanks goes to my Florida Trail Association friends that have taught me so much and are always eager to share experiences and photographs of the great places we visit. Then there are my paddling friends that explore the Everglades with me and by doing so, make the experience safer and richer. There are many artists that inspire and teach me and provide me a high standard of creativity to achieve, and to them I give many thanks. Last, a thank you to those that provided me the opportunity to display my work in the galleries devoted to Biscayne Bay and the Everglades.

The gallery exhibit I first began preparing for is specific to Biscayne Bay. While the topic is narrowly focused, my images of Biscayne Bay are in the thousands and span from 2007 to present. But they are easy to find because I keep my images in folders that are labeled by place and date (i.e, 07Aug13 Biscayne). These folders are placed inside another folder that is labeled by place and year (i.e., Biscayne2013). Beginning with the 2007 images, I went through each folder and picked out potential gallery images. Some of the images had already been processed in Lightroom or Photoshop, converted to TIF or jpeg, or both, and/or resized for web display. Regardless of what history the image had on my computer, I began with the original RAW image.

I ignored my previously processed TIF images, particularly the older ones. Why not use the image already processed? It is for the simple reason that I have become more skilled at processing my images on Photoshop and I have picked up a great deal of information from other photographers on what works best for printing. So with new knowledge and skills, I approached my older images with a keener eye.

I also found that I selected images that I previously ignored; like finding a little treasure hidden away. Once I selected an image, I processed it and saved it as a TIF without resizing. These TIF files were then placed in a folder dedicated to the TIF images for Biscayne Bay. Then I saved jpeg files for web display and kept those in a separate folder dedicated to online images of Biscayne Bay. This process took several weeks, but it ended with about 450 images.

The next step was to reduce the number from 450 to about 20-30 images that will be printed and displayed. This involves more than simply choosing the images. The next blog will address this next step.