Beaches, Gators, and Light – Oh My!
The Everglades are a complete wonder - Our trek began Thursday evening – Meeting first Mark Alberhasky and discovering a mentor of MANY talents and a passion for adventure and photography that just draws you into his world. Meeting Daniel Cox just complimented and completed the tone for the weekend head. Daniel’s passion for wildlife photography combined with Mark uncanny sense towards photography as an art had everyone raring to go.
Friday started off with a trip to the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary. This is an area that has left the wetlands for the most part untouched. You follow a boardwalk through the area, and get a spectacular taste of the what the Everglades are all about. The plant life and the water fowl are abundant and amazing. But, there was a catch. As we all have been told, Florida is the sunshine state. But even in a Tropical paradise, rain must fall. Of course, as photographers, we learned to overcome and work with adverse weather, and lighting conditions. The mentors were right there with us, guiding us and advising on how to adjust and compensate for the soft light. Corkscrew Swamp has many trees, some covered in Spanish Moss, others with large leaves, this combined with overcast skies, makes it a challenge, but not an impossible challenge for photographs. Both Daniel and Mark made sure that each one of us knew what adjustments to make…not by telling, but by asking, causing us to think through the settings, and play a little more outside the box.
We left there and headed off to the Florida Conservancy. Now this was educational from several aspects. Of course there was the Conservancy’s purpose and goals, which is something that at first you might think would not point to a photographer, but if you think about it, every time we make changes to the land around us, it affects all of us. Daniel explained that this is where photojournalistic photography would come into play, helping the cause of the organization, and improving skills because of the challenges of the environment we were in. Also, there was indoor lighting to work with, and glass tanks and areas for the animals being rehab posed challenges. These challenges were easy to overcome using some of the pointers that the mentors talked about and showed us earlier.
From there – it was off to Naples Pier for a sunset shoot. OK, overcast skies make it tough to see the sun, but being the enthusiastic group that we are, we shot the fishermen, and the sea birds that were hanging out. Did you know that rain and wet wood make for some great photographs…
A trip to the Florida Everglades is not complete until 3 things are done. Going on an airboat ride. Holding a small Alligator. And finding some of the most amazing critters I have ever seen. This trip was no different. Now there is not a lot you can photograph on an airboat cruising through the glades…amazingly though we all found some pretty cool compositions…alligators, pelicans, boats, people…from there to lunch at a local restaurant and then our great guide Kenny, took us over to Turner River. While at lunch, the storm line passed through, and by the time we got over to Turner river, the sun broke through. The birds were all out drying feathers, feasting on fish. The variety of birds in a small short area was AMAZING. It was a wildlife photographers DREAM come true.
Sunday came and on the last day of the trek took us aboard the catamaran of Sweet Liberty. Her and her crew took us on a wonderful morning cruise to a private island on the Gulf Coast. Wonderful shelling, seascapes and a time to a little bit of close up (almost) Macro Photography of shells and coral. The cruise back to Naples Bay showed even more of Southern Florida’s wonderful water fowl and ocean creatures. The final slide show, once again, provided proof to all that we learned something new. Discovered a new technique, and simply grew as a photographer. All thanks to the talented mentors of Daniel and Mark, and all the hard work from Michelle, Vanessa, and Erica, this is one of my favorite treks…but then again, aren’t they all amazing!!!??!!
Chauncey Davis
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