David Blevins Nature Photography http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php Copyright 2008, David Blevins David Blevins en-US SPHPBLOG 0.5.1 New Photographs, July 2008 http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080701-132838 new photographs for July are outtakes from three recent trips. Most of my photography work this year is focused on two large projects, and none of the photographs created for these projects are being displayed on the web site. I don’t want to lessen the impact of the publications by showing the images online. So the images I have been adding to the web site lately are images I have been able to make on the side just for fun. Fortunately, both of my projects have me visiting some amazing natural areas with plenty of subjects to work with.

I have not posted any new landscape images since January. This is because all the decent landscapes I have been able to create are for a book on the natural communities of North Carolina. Good light for landscapes can be very fleeting and I have been using every chance I can get to work on the book. However, this month, while I was scouting locations on Grandfather Mountain, I had some time (and some nice light) to make a landscape image just because I liked it.



Grandfather Mountain is a very satisfying place to hike. The backcountry trails can be quite challenging, and the rewards for your effort are spectacular. I had heard about ladders along the trail to help gain the summit of some of the more craggy peaks. When I reached the first set of ladders my inner voice said, "you have got to be kidding me!" "Ladders" is a bit of an understatement. It was at least 200 feet of ladders going almost vertically from the gap to the summit of McCrae Peak. I would normally meet a challenge like this with more enthusiasm, but I was worn out from several days of backpacking in the Roan Highlands. If you are not able or willing to partake of the backcountry, there are also excellent facilities including vehicle access to one of the high peaks. Visit Grandfather Mountain if you get the chance, it is spectacular! I will be going back in a few weeks.]]> New Images http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080701-132838 David Blevins Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:28:38 GMT http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/comments.php?y=08&m=07&entry=entry080701-132838 New Photographs, June 2008 http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080608-144206 new photographs this month were made during a trip to southeastern North Carolina with the Carolina Vegetation Survey. This group of scientists, students, and volunteers has been working for over 20 years to better understand the natural vegetation of the Carolinas. They gather twice a year for a week of intensive field work they call "Pulse".

Pulse is a great opportunity to learn about plant identification and natural communities from the scientific leaders in this field. You also get to visit locations that represent some of the best remaining natural communities. Anyone interested in vegetation and botany is invited to participate.

I started going to Pulse in 2006 to help me learn to see the North Carolina landscape through the eyes of these scientists. Much of my photography right now is focused on the same sorts of sites these scientists are sampling. That is, natural plant communities that do not show the effects of human disturbance.

I can’t say enough good things about the people I have met on Pulse. Their zeal for botany and ecology sees them happily off into greenbrier tangled thickets, crotch deep swamp water, and other places most people would refuse to enter. Ticks, chiggers, heat, and sun are all just part of the routine. Even the high humidity does not dampen their enthusiasm for all things botanical.

Dr. Tom Wentworth and Brenda Wichmann during Pulse.


After a full day of field work they stay up late into the night keying out unknown plants in what can only be described as a plant identification party. Then they get up at dawn and do it all over again.

Late night plant identification "party" during Pulse.
]]> New Images http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080608-144206 David Blevins Sun, 08 Jun 2008 18:42:06 GMT http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/comments.php?y=08&m=06&entry=entry080608-144206 Another Universe http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080523-230647 Swift Creek Bluffs to see if I could find some salamanders to photograph. I don't have much experience with salamanders, so I did not have much luck. I knew they used the ephemeral pools in the spring to lay their eggs. These pools dry up in the summer, so there are no fish to eat the eggs. I found lots of egg masses in the pools but did not find any salamanders. I spent the rest of the morning photographing wildflowers and ferns and then headed back to my truck. I often run into people I know here, and this time I bumped into "Rock" Turner. With a nickname like "Rock", you might expect him to be either a brute or a geologist, but this guy loves reptiles and amphibians. You have to put his nickname together with his last name to get the joke. Oh, and you have to know a little about what is involved in finding these sorts of critters.

When I saw Rock I thought, "this is my chance!" I asked if he could help me find some Salamanders. He agreed with his typical enthusiasm. We found several slimy salamanders, but they did not want to be photographed. Then Rock came up holding a salamander egg mass. I had seen them just beneath the surface of the water earlier, but I never tried picking them up. Out of the murky water it was easy to see lots of interesting details and color. Looking into this jiggling mass of gelatin in Rock's hands was like looking into another universe. I had Rock hold the egg mass in the sunlight as I tried to make a photograph. He did not get his nickname for being "rock" steady, and every little body movement was making the egg mass jiggle. He had to hold his breath and brace his arms against a log to try and stop the egg mass from jiggling. After a bit of effort, I was able to make a sharp photograph, but because I was looking down into his hands, I was not able to get rid of the sky reflected on the surface of the egg mass. Still, I liked the idea of the photograph and decided I would come back another day after I figured out how to solve the sky reflection problem.

This is the egg mass I photographed in Rock's hands. Notice the distracting sky reflections. You can also make out some of his fingers in the lower left background if you look carefully.


I came back about a week later thinking I would be able to do something similar and block the sky reflection. That trip was a total bust; nothing I tried would completely eliminate the sky reflection. I just could not get the image I wanted. I wanted the image to feel like you were in amongst the salamander eggs, like being in another universe. But as long as you can see the reflections on the surface of the gelatin, it gives you the impression you are on the outside looking in. Then I remembered the miniature aquarium I built.

Back in 2002, I was making photographs to tell the success story of the salmon habitat restoration work of the Alouette River Management Society. I wanted to make photographs of the young fry in the river as part of that photo essay. I spent a lot of time chasing those little fry with my camera under water, but they were just too small and fast to make a decent photograph. To solve the problem I built a small aquarium designed to keep the fry within the depth of field of my macro lens so I could get an up-close and detailed photograph.

This little aquarium was made out of two 4 inch square pieces of glass and a piece of metal strap used to bundle lumber. I attached it all together with silicon adhesive. It cost me nothing to make since I had all these materials lying about.



Steelhead Trout Fry, Alouette River, British Columbia, August 2002


It worked great; the only difficult part was catching the fry. By the way, this photograph of the Steelhead Trout Fry has been published more than any of my other images.

Anyway, I realized that if I put the salamander egg mass inside the aquarium, I could shoot horizontally rather than down and eliminate the sky reflection problem. Also, by pressing the gelatin up against the glass, it would eliminate any hint of the surface of the gelatin and give the impression of being inside it.

The last piece of the puzzle was the lighting. The ambient light was too soft and did not provide the high contrast I had seen that first day with Rock.


Spotted Salamander Eggs in ambient light.


I tried several different flash setups and decided the one I liked best was one flash from directly above. This gave the eggs a strong spherical shape and helped define the bodies of the young salamanders. It also gave the high contrast other-worldly look I was after.

It took three trips and the help of an expert but I finially made a salamander image I am happy with.
]]> On Location http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080523-230647 David Blevins Sat, 24 May 2008 03:06:47 GMT http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080523-230647 New Photographs, May 2008 http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080504-194325 The May 2008 issue is now online with 18 new photographs.

The last few months I have been trying to learn how to manipulate light with flash. I did not realize how well it was working until I noticed that every new photograph I chose to include in this months update was made with flash! I have been manipulating light with diffusers and reflectors for years but only now am I starting to get the hang of using flash in a way that looks natural and compliments the subject.

The biggest advantage I see with flash is I can achieve the lighting I want more easily without having to wait for the light to change or returning later when the light improves. This means I can spend more time making photographs and less time waiting for the sun or clouds to move. It also means I am more able to make a photograph regardless of what the natural light is doing.]]> New Images http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080504-194325 David Blevins Sun, 04 May 2008 23:43:25 GMT http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/comments.php?y=08&m=05&entry=entry080504-194325 Tracing Our Past - A Heritage Guide to Boundary Bay http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080329-145617


All the new photographs this month are from my new book with Anne Murray on the history of Boundary Bay. Tracing Our Past - A Heritage Guide to Boundary Bay is the story of a landscape and the people who transformed it. It is your guide to the history of this coastline, from the last Ice Age to the challenges facing us in the modern day. This is the sequel to A Nature Guide to Boundary Bay and will be available later this month. You can order yours online from Anne's web site. In addition to my photographs, this book also has many excellent historic photographs that show you what the area used to be like.

I made some of the photographs in this new book several years ago while I was living in the area, but many of them were made last summer during a two week trip to Boundary Bay. I showed a few photographs from this trip in the September 2007 update. Some of the images shown on the web site are not the exact same compositions used in the book. I try to shoot both horizontal and vertical compositions of a subject when I can because you never know which orientation the layout is going to call for. Sometimes the layout calls for the composition I prefer and sometimes not. I decided to use my preferred compositions for the web site.

In addition to adding these photographs to the web site, I have also updated the Boundary Bay pages to include more information and more photographs from the books, photographs from Boundary Bay that were not used in the books, a map to show where some of the images were created, and an illustrated article with advice for making your own photographs in the Boundary Bay area.

As part of this update, I have replaced some of the older Boundary Bay jpegs with new improved scans. I have also added some older Boundary Bay photographs that have not previously been displayed on the web site such as this photograph of Greater Yellowlegs shown below. You can see these Boundary Bay images from the galleries listed in the menu on the right side of the Boundary Bay page.


Greater Yellowlegs
]]> New Images http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080329-145617 David Blevins Sat, 29 Mar 2008 18:56:17 GMT http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/comments.php?y=08&m=03&entry=entry080329-145617 What was I doing? Oh yea, spring ephemerals. http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080322-235344 Swift Creek Bluffs. I arrived early in the morning when the light was gentle. High thin clouds helped diffuse the light well into the morning. Spring peepers were singing, a downy woodpecker was drumming high up in the beech trees trying to attract a mate, several chickadees were busy excavating a cavity in a dead beech branch, and the ground was covered in spring beauties, trout lilies, and the first signs of many other early wildflowers.

There was so much going on I was having trouble focusing on my subject. Focusing my mind I mean, the camera had no trouble focusing. Good compositions don't usually just jump out at me, I have to work at it. At some point I have to stop taking it all in and focus my thoughts on what I am trying to photograph. In this case, I was here to photograph spring ephemerals. Swift Creek Bluffs has one of the best displays of spring ephemerals I have seen in this area. I started to think,

"these plants emerge, flower, produce seeds, and disappear, all within a few months. They start growing earlier than most plants in the forest so they can take advantage of the abundant sunlight, moisture, and nutrients available at this time of year. Conditions will become much more difficult for them once the trees start producing leaves, creating deep shade, and absorbing much of the available water and nutrients. It's an interesting strategy, although they still have to contend with cold, and there are not that many pollinators this time of year. These plants tend to remain very close to the ground where it's a little warmer, and they tend to have showy flowers to attract the few pollinators that are out.

Ugh! You see, there I go! Stop thinking about ecology and focus on what you are doing!"

Okay, after beating myself up for a minute, I finally found a nice trout lily, got the camera out, set up the tripod, and started to get down on the ground for a trout lily's perspective. That's when I noticed the poison ivy. Now, you have to keep in mind that at this time of year the poison ivy has no leaves, just little stems sticking up a few inches from the ground, and they were everywhere! They look harmless enough but I have learned from experience not to lay down on these, because if you break them bad things happen a few days later.

So, after awhile I found another nice trout lily, this time without any toxic neighbors. I got down on the ground, found a nice composition and started fine tuning it and working on the lighting. Finally, I was in the zone, time was flying, and I almost had a composition I liked. I did not even notice how uncomfortably contorted my body was as I struggled to look through my camera suspended just a quarter inch off the ground. And that's when I saw it, coming right at me. It took a second for my eyes to refocus from looking through the camera to what ever this was. It was about 8 inches long, skinny, brown, and about 10 inches from my head and closing fast!

"Snake! Oh never mind, it's just an earthworm. I didn't know they made them that big! I can't believe it can move that fast. Where is it going in such a hurry? Okay, what was I doing? Oh yea, I'm photographing this trout lily."


Trout Lily
]]> On Location http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080322-235344 David Blevins Sun, 23 Mar 2008 03:53:44 GMT http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/comments.php?y=08&m=03&entry=entry080322-235344 Sorry, I don't have any photographs of that! http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080313-231434
It's a shame to have to tell a client I don't have the photograph they are looking for. It happens all too often. I was contacted today by a publishing company looking for the rights to use one of my images in a science textbook. They provided a link to the image and gave me all the publication details I needed to quote a usage fee. Everything was straight forward except for one detail. They seemed to think the photograph was of a passenger pigeon!


Rock Dove

Before I prepared the price quote I thought I should check to be sure that was really the photograph they wanted. I informed them that the photograph was of a rock dove, not a passenger pigeon. Since the passenger pigeon went extinct in 1914, a color photograph of a live passenger pigeon was going to be impossible to find. I just heard back from them and they said,

"Thank you for the prompt reply. But I'm afraid we are looking for a picture of the passenger pigeon. Thanks for your help!"


I don't know, for some reason I don't feel so bad about not having photographs of that species!
]]> Observations http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080313-231434 David Blevins Fri, 14 Mar 2008 03:14:34 GMT http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/comments.php?y=08&m=03&entry=entry080313-231434 Go with what works http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080308-150638
At times like this I try to remind myself to just go with what works. The nuthatches were run off when ever they came into the yard. The warbler, however, was present constantly as he chased the other birds with his tail feathers flared. I made lots of photographs of him over several days but I like this one the best because of the way it shows his attitude. I get the sense from this photograph that he is staring right at me and I am next on his list! Can you really blame him though? I mean, wouldn't you develop an attitude if people kept calling attention to some obvious feature of your posterior?


Yellow-rumped Warbler
]]> Observations http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080308-150638 David Blevins Sat, 08 Mar 2008 20:06:38 GMT http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/comments.php?y=08&m=03&entry=entry080308-150638 Well, here it goes... http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080305-113520
And then I realized, this blog can be seen by EVERYONE! Naturally, I started to panic. But then I realized something that made me decide to keep going. When I originally started this web site in 1999 it was just to learn how to make a web site. I didn't really have any other purpose and the only thing I could think of to put on a web site was some of my photographs. Not long after that Anne noticed my Boundary Bay photographs online and asked me to work with her on A Nature Guide to Boundary Bay. Then an Icelandic newspaper contacted me for permission to publish a photograph of a red admiral butterfly they had seen on my web site. Before I knew it I had a photography web site that was earning money!

The first photograph I ever sold. It was licensed to a newspaper in Iceland for $50.


After a few years I decided to put a little pressure on myself by requiring the web site to be updated with new photographs once every month AND for at least one of those photographs to work as a magazine cover. That is why the home page is designed to look like a magazine cover. It was a way of forcing me to make a cover image every month. One cover image a month might not seem like a lot but I was also working on my Ph.D. at the time. It was a bit difficult at first but I have been keeping this up ever since and now creating compositions that work on a cover is almost second nature for me.

This is the first cover from January 2002. The text graphics are low quality because I was a poor graduate student at the time and didn't own photoshop. I had to make this using Microsoft Paint!. I also did not own my own film scanner so the image quality is pretty rough!


So I think it is something like that driving me to make this blog. I think I would like more experience writing about what I photograph and it takes a commitment like this to really push me to do it. Like the beginning of this web site, I can't really see where this is going. I hope to provide some entertaining and interesting commentary on the work I am doing and on the photographs I am making. I expect I will be taking you with me to some beautiful places and sharing some of my thoughts and experiences. It might not work but I can think of only one way to find out.]]> News http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/index.php?entry=entry080305-113520 David Blevins Wed, 05 Mar 2008 16:35:20 GMT http://www.blevinsphoto.com/blog/comments.php?y=08&m=03&entry=entry080305-113520