Mangroves

We've been hard at work on a Mangrove assignment and in so doing have learned much about these fascinating plants.

Top photo: Red Mangrove flowers, Rhizophora mangle, flowers are either self pollinated or wind pollinated and less than one inch in diameter.

Second Photo: Propagules of Red Mangrove, Rhizophora mangle. When ripe, these young seedlings detach from the parent tree and float in the Florida Bay until a suitable substratum is contacted.

Third Photo: Underwater view of the Prop Roots of Red Mangrove, Rhizophora mangle, which serve as a host for algae, sponges and other marine life.

Yet Another Reason Why Photography Is Wonderful

Therisa found this amazing creature in our yard the other day!

After doing a little research with the help of knowledgeable friends,

she was determined to be a female Florida Bagworm (moth),

Oiketicus abbotii, female in sack.

This is the only bagworm species in the U.S. that arranges twig pieces transversely.

Photographed with a Canon 100mm Macro lens and Canon MT-24EX Twin Flash, 1/250 f14

Changing A Frog's Diaper

Four of our frog photos are being used in the 2010 World Wildlife Federation's "Frogs" calendar.  

Seeing these gorgeous rainforest amphibians in sample calendars we received the other day brought back fond memories of six large terrariums on our dining room table for several months. Each was filled with rocks, stones and large amounts of sphagnum moss and served as homes for our amphibian models who were not exactly low maintenance creatures.  In addition to maintaining proper temperature and diet, the moss needed to be removed, rinsed and cleaned by hand on a daily basis.  We called it  "Changing the Frog's Diaper!"

Photo Sales For Advertising Use Pay The Bills

The bottom photo of the dive flag at sunset had been used in both print and trade show advertising for the Monroe County (Florida Keys) Tourist Development Council annually for three years.

Image our surprise and delight when their advertising agency contacted us once again to negotiate pricing for its new use in a print ad, top photo.

The fee we agreed upon is 10X higher than what we would have been paid for the editorial use of this image in the same magazine at the same reproduction size.

The message is clear, photos used for advertising pay the bills, take no prisoners!

Young Stewards of the Ocean

We just completed a a wonderful photo assignment for National Wildlife Federation about young people involved in staghorn coral restoration. We photographed these young divers as they harvested the coral from an underwater nursery, cleaned the growth bases, tagged and measured the corals.  Surfacing with their selected corals we then traveled to a damaged area on a nearby reef where we photographed the boys and girls using a special underwater epoxy to "plant" the corals on the reef.  

Since our contract dictates we cannot release the photos until they are published by National Wildlife Federation, the photos shown here are of another coral restoration event involving college students that we photographed on assignment for a magazine in 2007.

It's really gratifying to work on an assignment about such a positive project!

Life on Mars

Sometimes you just can't sleep at night.  You've got this idea, this concept and you know there will be no rest until you breathe life into it. Creativity is like that. Fortunately I have a wonderful wife who feels the same and we often work together, as we did here on Mars, to make an idea a reality.

Fossil Shooting Out West

Therisa and I learned long ago that the key to survival in the highly competitive world of photography is to shoot "niche" subject matter. These are subjects that not everyone photographs so that when a photo editor is, for instance, searching for an image of a fossil snake, we should not face an avalanche of competition.  We plan our photo journeys accordingly and are both well tuned into locating unusual subject matter in advance.

The fossil snake above was discovered in 2007 and only the second fossil snake from the Green River Formation in Wyoming.  Preliminary identification suggests it's a boa.