Our Anhinga Published in the November, 2022 issue of Ranger Rick, Jr.

 

 

Photos of Anhinga birds stretching their wings to dry are not all that unusual and we've photographed them many times in the Florida Everglades.

This particular photo has a slightly different look than the Everglades. It was taken on the bank of the Silver River northeast of Ocala, FL with a Canon 70-200mm lens and appears as the back cover fold out in the current November, 2022 issue of National Wildlife Federation's Ranger Rick Jr. Magazine.

Pulling Detail Out Of Underexposed Areas

 

While editing our photos from a recent trip to St. Augustine, Florida I came upon the top photo of the historic City Gate of St. Augustine.  We had both successfully photographed the entrance to the City Gate from the other side in soft early morning light with no people present.  I walked through the gate, turned around and saw this incredible sky above the now silhouetted gate.  Realizing that if I photographed the gate on auto exposure the sky would be over exposed and blown out. So I switched to manual exposure and exposed for the sky leaving the gate underexposed (top photo). Now I was able to pull out the detail of the underexposed gate in Camera RAW while keeping that beautiful sky (bottom photo). Remember that it's nearly impossible, even when working a RAW file, to bring back detail from an overexposed area.

Photo was taken with a 24 megapixel Canon, exposure was f8, 1/100 sec, ISO 100

Anticipation Pays Off

 We always arrive at a zoo, or in this case a Wildlife State Park, a few minutes before opening to ensure we are the first to encounter the animals.  In this case we knew there were a pair of endangered Whooping Cranes in a captive breeding program.  I already had my camera setup with the optimum focal length lens, a Canon 70-200mm, and a Canon speedlight with a diffuser attached. This beautiful bird still had it's head tucked in under its wing. Photo is being published in the current issue of Range Magazine.

 We did it 2 years ahead of plan!

Shortly after we both began shooting video clips in 2013 to market online, we set a goal to have 2,000 video clips filmed, edited, captioned, keyworded and uploaded for review and approved in 10 years.

Shooting video footage is more demanding than shooting stills nearly always requiring a tripod and a different strategy.

When 4K video came into play, we invested in new equipment yielding spectacular results.

Three years ago we made the decision, for several reasons, to go exclusive with our  top performing video agency Pond 5.  We removed over 1,100 video clips from three other agencies and never looked back.  

This week, 2years ahead of schedule, we celebrated as we topped 2,000 video clips uploaded, reviewed and approved for sale on Pond 5.  You can view our work here:

Our video clips exclusively on Pond5

Some of Therisa's Favorite Dive Sites Over TheYears

 

Tom made this collage of photos he took of me at some of my favorite dive sites over the years. Nearly all of these were done on assignment for various magazines. What a great ride it's been!

Look Over Your Shoulder!

While working on a photo series of a historic cemetery I recently learned off in newspaper article, I was reminded to amend and update a long standing mantra. For years I have advised photographers to reassess their viewfinder composition before turning and walking away with a feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment over the images they had just captured. Since most of us tend to shot horizontals, I urged photographers to find a vertical composition in their scene.  Besides, I explained, verticals usually command higher usage fees as full page reproductions and covers.

Last Friday morning, I arrived in the predawn darkness at a location I had scouted the week before. I was absolutely thrilled with the thick fog and the element of eerie mysteriousness it would add to my images.  As I awaited the rising sun to silhouette the tombstones and ancient oak trees draped in spanish moss, I happened to look over my shoulder down road I had driven in on. "Whoa!" I thought as I re-positioned the tripod to photograph the scene.  Lesson learned, look over your shoulder!

 

Foggy Road

Sometimes It Just All Comes Together - Daybreak 4K Timelapse

When shooting still images for a timelapse in predawn light it's always hard to predict what kind of cloud cover, movement and sunrise light you're going to have.  It's even difficult to predict exactly where the sun will be rising on the horizon so that you can compose your image properly. However, the biggest challenge I faced on this morning was attempting to get my horizon line straight. I shot 483 still images, one every two seconds, on Manual with an exposure of 1/60 sec at f8, ISO 100.  No post production work was done, no saturation added. Click on the image below to view the timelapse video clip result on Pond 5: