Get Low

"Edge of the World" - Florida Bay - Everglades National Park

It's easy to get stuck in a rut with photography. After your 500,000th image, it might feel like you've done it all before. Luckily though, it's often just as easy to break out and explore new possibilities by simply changing your perspective. I get inspiration from other photographers all the time. In fact, it's part of my daily routine to research other artists and see what they're doing. One photographer in particular, John Spohrer, based out of Apalachicola, Florida would create these arrestingly dramatic images by shooting a low angle on water. Simple, right?  This isn't necessarily an Einstein moment but this technique is often overlooked by photographers. When applied in the right situations, it can completely alter the depth and feel of your images.

Take this scene for example. To me, this is a standard one-dimensional view of a summer squall in Florida Bay. You have some water, you have some storm clouds, all of which seem to appear on the same visual plane. While this image might be good for an advertisement or calendar, to me, I'm not moved to feel anything when I look at it. 

Holding my camera just above the water's edge over the boat with a wide angle lens (Canon 16-35mm) and employing fast shutter speeds by means of high ISO I made a series of images without looking through the viewfinder. Only an inch above the water, this proved a little dangerous as a rogue wave lapped the base of my camera. Not good. Still, I was able to make a few frames from this new perspective. What resulted was this very multi-dimensional image which gives a turbulent and almost apocalyptic aura. The way the water eliminates the horizon creates a sense of impending doom, like Columbus must have imagined when sailing towards the edge of the Earth. All I had to do was hold my camera close to the water. 

Here are a few more dualities so you can see the benefit of simply changing your perspective. To me, the lower angles just have a way of filling the space more efficiently. Take note how your eyes want to linger a little more. Who knows though, maybe you'll like the standard images better. I'm curious to hear what you think. 

With the low angle, you get much more action and interesting patterns in the water from reflected light. This way, the water doesn't just become empty space, but instead helps define and draw your eye into the subject.  

The Dreamcatcher

"The Dreamcatcher" - Florida Bay - Everglades National Park - Photo © Mac Stone

The Everglades hosts the largest continuous stand of mangroves in the world. These gothic trees, with their crawling prop roots and arching limbs, are one of my favorite subjects to photograph. They each take on their own personality formed by wind, water, light, and even by the birds that roost upon their branches. Of the entire 850 square miles of Florida Bay that I've explored, however, there is only one particular mangrove that I have come to regard as my favorite. It sounds ridiculous to admit this, to hold preference of one tree over millions, but this partisanship isn't unique to just me. All of my coworkers at Audubon each have their adored mangrove, one that seems to smile back at them when their boats race by.

"Dreamcatcher Dusk" - Florida Bay - Everglades National Park - Photo © Mac Stone

This particular tree, which I have dubbed "The Dreamcatcher" is one of the most unique and distinguishable mangroves in the Bay. Its flat-top canopy expands radially in spindled limbs crowned with a perfect ring of orange, yellow, and green leaves. The base is a series of red columns littered with barnacles that come to life as the tides rise and fall. At one point in this mangrove's life it supported a large osprey nest, giving it the rounded platform look we see today. I have spent countless evenings and pre-dawn mornings over the last year boating through the cuts and shallow banks of southeastern Florida Bay just to share this mangrove's voice with the world.  Like many projects I've started, it will take me months and sometimes even years before I feel comfortable showing the results. Many times I came home empty-handed but finally, in April, I managed to make two images worthy of this spectacular tree, "The Dreamcatcher," and "Dreamcatcher Dusk."

Roseate Spoonbills

Newborn roseate spoonbill chicks in Florida Bay

Numbers of roseate spoonbill nests in Florida Bay are slowly climbing as we explore new territories. It's encouraging to see them rebound after a slow and steady decline over the last 15 years. Islands that we never considered suitable for the pink birds are surprisingly hosting good-sized colonies and reshaping our ideas of their nesting and foraging habits. 

Chicks around the age of 12 days, known as Stage II, will spend another 20 days on the nest before making their first flights. 

We're finding a healthy variation of chicks at different stages, from hatchlings to fledglings, all across the Bay. This isn't out of the ordinary but it helps us see how these birds' nesting schedules are related to food availability. For example, in the northwestern section of the Bay where tides control water levels, spoonbills nested earlier in the season because they could find sufficient food as tides withdrew. When you boat eastward where wind and rainfall controls water levels, you find that spoonbills choose to nest later, waiting for the dry season to kick in. Once water levels are low enough to amass fish in large concentrations, adults will commit to laying a clutch. With shallow water bringing an abundant food source, adults will be able to sustain their young through the nesting season. That's the plan, at least.

A chick only a few days shy of fledging the nest lays motionless below its nest after a cold front in February. 

Recently a cold front pushed through south Florida and dumped rain for three straight days. What seems like a small event to us, a 4-inch rise in water levels effectively disables the spoonbills from accessing optimal foraging grounds. Immediately after, across the board, we witnessed an abandonment of nests and several chicks not far from fledging, washed up in the mangroves. While it's too early in the data set to directly connect the rain event to nest abandonment, we can't say it was entirely coincidence.

A Stage II chick, about 10 days old is found lifeless in the rain-soaked red mangrove prop roots

I can't tell you how heart-wrenching this is to see, how helpless they look, but it's the reality that these birds live with. Albeit disturbing, this is exactly the point Audubon is trying to drive home. Water levels determine everything in the southern Everglades and Florida Bay. While we can't control the weather, we are controlling the water flowing from the north and we must be extremely careful with how we use it

Flamingos!

Juveniles and adults preen Lake Ingram in morning light

You may remember a post I did back in August of last year where I freaked out about getting to see my first flamingo in Florida Bay. Pete Frezza and I pulled around for nearly 15 miles trying to get a good glimpse of that one bird and I thought it would be my last chance. Oddly, this year for a period of about three months a group of 19 flamingos found refuge in Lake Ingram. A frenzy ensued with birders, photographers, and anglers trying to get good looks at these birds, and there they were; a mix of adults and juveniles not 20 yards from one of the busiest channels in the park. Biologists are guessing they're Bahamian birds and hopeful that they'll continue to use Cape Sable as a foraging ground. I just stoked I was able to see this incredible sight before they flew back home.

Gettin High

Alligator Bay and Joe Bay in Everglades National Park, flight courtesy of Light Hawk

I'm constantly trying to find new ways of seeing the Bay. I've been fortunate enough lately to find friends around South Florida and organizations willing to take me up in their fixed-wing planes. Of course I always fail to mention to the pilot, until I'm strapped in that I don't do well in small aircrafts. Once they start looking for any spare bags I then offer them the challenge of trying to get me back on the runway without incident, as if it were any measure of their skill.

Now that I think about it, though, I've always been the vomit kid. I can't read in cars, I'm horrible on tire swings, I chum the water in open ocean, and you'd be a fool to sit anywhere near me on a spinning roller coaster. Afraid of being forced indoors with all the allergy kids, I would never admit to having motion sickness. Instead, after filling someone's back seat with my lunch, I would say, "woah, that's weird, it must have been something I ate." 

Lake Ingram at low tide in Everglades National Park, flight courtesy of Light Hawk

It's this cognizant denial that keeps me booking flights and boating in the ocean. Regardless of the consequences, it's always worth the price I have to pay. As long as I can keep convincing myself that I'm getting better, I don't think I'll stop. In the coming month I already have 6 separate flights arranged. I guess if nothing else, I'll get to work on my figure.  

Murray Key with American white pelicans in Everglades National Park, flight courtesy of Light Hawk

Florida Bay, pilot Eduardo Ornelas

Tidal mudflats and creeks on Cape Sable, flight courtesy of Light Hawk

 

Roseate Spoonbill Chicks

Two roseate spoonbill chicks with a third one about to break through its shell. Spoonbills, unlike flamingos, are pink at birth. 

The spoonbills are well on their way to creating the new generation of wading birds to call Florida Bay home. I've been scouring almost every single island from the Keys out to Cape Sable in search of colonies. What I'm finding are an array of breeding pairs that are inhabiting keys where we never expected to find them. Last week as I peered into one of the nests I watched a chick peck its way through the egg as its two older siblings clamored about. It was one of those moments where I felt extremely proud to be an Audubon employee. I couldn't help but laugh though, when thinking about the misfortune of being given, of all things, a spoon to break your way out of a windowless cage. The egrets and herons have it far easier.

Send Off: Florida Wildlife Corridor Expedition

Just before Carlton pushes off for the first day of his expedition, he and I pose for a photo on Florida Bay

This morning Jerry Lorenz and I drove out to Flamingo in Everglades National Park to send off a friend and fellow conservation photographer Carlton Ward Jr. who embarked on a 1,000 mile expedition. This adventure is known as the Florida Wildlife Corridor and will help to lay the foundation of a conservation initiative linking critical fragmented landscapes. It's an extremely bold task and I'm so upset I can't go with him. Joining Carlton, is filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus, and bear biologist Joe Gutherie, two brave souls who say they're "in it to win it." Carlton's expedition will meet up with artists and paddlers all over Florida as they make their way north. I'm planning on meeting them on the 24th while accompanying the Arthur Marshall Foundation who are on their own paddling expedition to show the importance of our waterways in south Florida. First, though he'll have a hearty paddle up to Avocado Creek and then a rough slog atop jagged limestone through miles of sawgrass in Shark Slough. When I said goodbye to Carlton and his crew today, he said, "I'll see see you in a few days!" With a nervous tone I replied, "Yeah, I hope so..."

State director of research Jerry Lorenz speaks on behalf of Audubon Florida about the importance of Florida Wildlife Corridor at the edge of Florida Bay. 

Winter, By Any Other Name...

Adam Chasey climbs a palm tree in Key Largo to retrieve a coconut for his dog River  

No one takes our winters seriously. Here we are, having to put on jeans and fleeces and I get no sympathy from my northern friends. It's rough I tell you. My brother, Will, visiting from North Carolina for the weekend couldn't believe we spent all day in swim suits and tank tops while lounging at a bayside park in the middle of January. While the rest of the country is bundling up and tucking their cold feet into the cracks of a warm couch, we're firing up the grill and chasing sunsets. Two days ago I watched an excited couple walk through the neighborhood carrying a bottle of wine and a full couch to the end of a boardwalk in Key Largo. What a crazy thing. People scoff, saying, "Pshh, you have no seasons," in a tone that sounds more like, "You have no soul," but I'm okay with that. They can keep their gray skies and icy roads. I'll stay down here with the other lost sun-kissed souls. 

Lost and Found

Florida Bay mangrove islands with the Gulf Stream clouds and Florida Keys in the background.

I love watching adventure shows where the protagonist drops in on an island and must use his immediate resources to survive or escape. I'm always skeptical too, of the serendipity that Bear Grylls just happens to find a 30 foot rope, a lighter, or gallon jugs half-filled with potable water washed up on the shores. Surely, the producers must have planted some of that stuff before filming. I held this skepticism until I started exploring the islands in Florida Bay for our spoonbill research with Audubon. Now, I find myself eager to go to work if not just for the spoonbills but also because I never know what I'll find while walking through mangrove tangles or kayaking along the mud flats.

Mangrove prop roots act as nets trapping all matter of floating debris.

The most common things I find are colorful stone crab buoys which at a distance have fooled me to believing there were flamingos in the central bay. I have also started a collection of drink cozies with faded tackle shop labels. Antique bottles are a great treasure to find and I have a couple that date back a century. There's no shortage of homeless sandals either. Crocs brand are the most common, and if anyone needs a size 9, 10, or 12, then I have you covered. Why is it always the left shoe that people lose?

A boat enters into Trout Creek in the northeastern Bay. 

It's no surprise really. With all the boaters, residents, and visitors to the Keys and Everglades a few things are bound to arrive on the islands of this 850 square-mile wilderness. For years the Everglades was renowned for its lawless backcountry allowing drug smugglers a perfect location for trafficking. Veteran fishing guides who wish to remain nameless, muse on the days of their biggest catches, landing large "square groupers," caught in the tidal flats which would fetch $200,000 at market price.

While contraband busts rarely run the headlines, the Everglades remains vast and largely unpatrolled by park officials. Just last week, while exploring an island in the northwest Bay, I saw something strange washed up on a sandy beach.

A homemade Cuban life raft washed up on the shore of an island in the northwest Bay.

A blue vessel, made of canvas stretched over two large tire inner tubes with oar-locks, and a heavy plastic keel, sat abandoned at the high tide line. At closer inspection, inside the cockpits were cans of tuna, varying flavors of soda, and a couple of sweaters. Although the labels slightly worn, I could tell immediately where this raft came from. It's incredible to think two people floated in open ocean aboard this backyard-assembled dinghy.  Being only 90 miles from Cuba, Florida Bay is really the perfect destination for refugees. I just hope they didn't get too antsy and try to swim the remaining 5 miles to mainland through the shark and croc-infested water. For a moment, I looked up, scared to find the stranded sailors watching me from the trees, but at this point they were long gone.

A 14 foot American crocodile suns on the banks of Cape Sable in Florida Bay.

I may not be Bear Grylls, but I'd like to think that if I were to be stranded on one of these islands, I'd be able to survive just fine. With my luck, I'd just hop on the next abandoned life raft and paddle safely to shore, gorging on canned tuna and orange soda.

Winter's Approach

Rainbow over the mangrove shoreline of Madiera Bay in Everglades National Park

We had our first bite of winter last week. It's strange. One day I'm snorkeling in the Bay, the next, I'm wearing a ski hat and winter coat while boating to work. I love this time of year. Migratory birds are filling the skies and roseate spoonbills are starting to build nests. The mornings are electric with piercing warm light that seems to last for an hour. On the open water, crisp zephyrs rip across the Bay ushering in the seasonal shift. The wind is changing and there's no better place to put it than a couple of sails.

Sailing on Florida Bay we met up with Jerry Lorenz on his boat, R. mangle 

It seems like it's my first weekend in quite some time where I'm not running around at a thousand miles per hour trying to juggle deadlines and catching flights. So when my friend Steve Pollock invited me out on his newly restored sailboat, it actually felt strange to say yes. Sometimes the grind keeps me going, it keeps me fulfilled knowing that my time bears fruit. Sometimes though, it's just nice to turn off the motor and go slow for a change.

A pod of dolphins play behind the R. mangle 

The Magic Hour

A red mangrove 10 minutes before sunset

So if dawn is the blue hour, then the moments before and after dusk are what photographers call the magic hour. Within the last minutes before and after the sun drops below the horizon, the color palette shifts creating dramatic differences in tones and hues, completely altering the mood of the landscape. While out paddling with a good friend and photographer Paul Marcellini, I got a first hand look at how Florida Bay changes in a matter of minutes.  Now the hard part is just figuring out which one I like more.

The same red mangrove 10 minutes after sunset

Power Struggle

"Power Struggle" - South Park Key in Florida Bay

In the still of a mauve morning, the full moon sets over the Bob Keys and a storm lingers in the west. During the blue hour of twilight, a dramatic tension fills the air as night reluctantly succumbs to the day. "Power Struggle," is the newest image to go into my Florida Bay portfolio and I can't wait to see it in a bigger format!

Frazier Springfield works a mangrove cluster at South Park

I made this image while a couple photographer friends were visiting for the weekend. Wanting a chance to shoot early morning light with mangroves and a setting full moon we boated out at 5:00 AM from Islamorada to get to our location. Since it was pitch black, finding the banks and cuts was a little difficult but we managed to make it to South Park Key at just the right time. I felt so lucky to have a full moon, lightning, morning light, and mangroves in the same image.

The predawn ambiance was spectacular and we treaded lightly through the flats spooking lemon sharks that trolled the shallow water. It was an easy place to feel overwhelmed since there are simply thousands of potential images but recently I've been trying to lock in on my spot and work it until it sings. It certainly paid off this time.

Trolllin' and Pollin' Everglades Style

The same places I've been visiting since I arrived here are still continuing to surprise me. There's no shortage of adventure and discovery in Everglades National Park, that's for sure. With my friend, coworker, and backcountry fishing guide Pete Frezza, we headed out before dawn to meet the sun as it rose over the Everglades. Launching his boat we battled swarms of mosquitoes fully understanding our blood was a necessary sacrifice for our plans that day.

Right off the bat, the calm water began rippling out from the banks as juvenile tarpon rolled violently on unsuspecting minnows. I had never seen anything like that in South Florida. The only time I watched fish rise this frequently was on the North Platte River in Wyoming, and those were 15'' trout. These were 30'' tarpon. By my third cast I had one on the fly and it sent itself rocketing into the blue morning sky. What a way to start the day!

Pete was nice enough to let me have the first casts, but promptly after I wanted to see how it was done by a pro. Watching a seasoned fisherman cast into the tight spots around mangroves is like watching an artist at work. His fly danced and line undulated in beautiful loops and fell silently on the water, presenting an unresistable morsel to the fish below.

And just when we thought it couldn't get any better than fishing on a Monday, a double rainbow appeared over the water. We stayed in this spot for the next two hours and found a few young snook which was encouraging to see since their numbers declined so abruptly after the 2010 freeze.

Despite the adrenaline-filled morning and intense satisfaction I felt, our day was far from over. A few days earlier we received word from Garl's Coastal Kayaking that they spotted a flamingo around one of the flats on Florida Bay. Historically, this wasn't an uncommon sight, as the main marina is called Flamingo from the vast numbers of pink birds that spent their summers here. Unfortunately, as a result of the plume trade, hurricanes, and continued hunting in Cuba, it's extremely rare to see these iconic birds in South Florida. While our expectations were low, our hopes soared, carrying us on a 10 mile boat ride without the use of a motor through pole and troll-only zones.

The bay was like glass and we could see redfish tailing in the flats as the tide drew out. Along the banks, dense mats of turtle grass floated on the surface, uprooted by storm surges and water currents, then elegantly arranged in lava-like tendrils of varying colors. Great white herons dotted the horizon waiting for unsuspecting toadfish and crabs to swim by. Just when it couldn't get any better, all of a sudden by the shoreline we spotted it; my very first wild flamingo. 

I've seen plenty of flamingos in zoos and postcards in all the stores down here, I've even drunk out of a plastic one, but never fully appreciated these birds until this moment. I couldn't believe how they dwarfed all the shorebirds and wading birds along the coast. Maybe because they're rare, maybe because we pulled 5 miles to get there, whatever the case I was overcome with this entitled feeling that I had been let into some special club. My camera was working, batteries at full charge, and an empty memory card, things were looking good. We approached slowly, but we couldn't quite get close enough for a candid image. Wary of people, the flamingo would promptly take off as soon as we got within 50 feet, extending its long awkward neck and using the flats as its runway. It seemed to take forever for the bird to get into the air.

After another hour, we saw the flamingo land near some other wading birds. Hoping that power in numbers would make this bird feel safer we headed towards them and were able to get a little closer. Just then, my polarizer fell off my lens and scared the bird away. I managed to get some frames off just before, but still, with such a rare sighting, the images I was making didn't match what I was feeling. Fortunately, the flamingo landed with a group of white herons. Seeing the image line up, Pete helped paddle us into a position to juxtapose the mangrove islands of Florida bay and this odd family of birds against the afternoon horizon.

Given the light and the physical circumstances, I couldn't have been happier. And just in time too, because looking behind us, a storm was brewing, forcing us off the flats to bring our 15 mile pole and paddle to an end. I'm still buzzing from the energy.