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I am just finishing up my second season of "The Joy Of Painting" by Bob Ross. For those who don't know much about Bob, he was a painter who lived in the latter 20th century and was known for his gentle nature and "simple" wet on wet painting technique. He was often quoted as saying, "you can do this!"
The fact is most people completely tuned out what he said moments later, and rushed out and bought his latest painting kit in hopes of becoming the next great painter. What he said moments later is that you must practice these techniques, and when you learn those techniques, you can apply them and great wonderful paintings. I believe, in essence, he was correct on both accounts.
I think in many ways photography is the same way. The beginner often looks at great wildlife photographers like Art Morris and Moose Peterson, and truly believe they can run right out and create beautiful images. In fact they are right, but the timetable to get there is all wrong! Look back over your life. Did you do anything that didn't take some practice? Swimming, biking, basketball and soccer took years of your time before you really began to grasp the finer points. Why then do so many think photography is different?
I think the answer is this: everyone has a camera, and so everyone thinks they can make great images. In the back of their mind they are equating a snapshot of the family dog with a shot of an eagle snatching a fish from the water. The two, of course, are very different indeed.
The other huge mistake people make is equating equipment to great images. Although it is true that cameras and lenses do play a major role in creating great images, only practice and patience combined with gear will make you a better photographer. I can't begin to tell you how many times someone has said, "wow, you must have a nice camera to make that image." Well, actually it is a fairly nice camera, but it is about 9 years old and way off the current specs. The camera is only about half the equation. The other half is YOU!
In conclusion, let's use our painting analogy one more time. If I were to go out and buy the whole Bob Ross kit, with all the accessories and play his DVD in the background, do you think I could create his painting? Well, the answer is yes and no. My first attempt would no doubt fall flat, but as I kept going and practicing, my chances of making it to his level increase day by day. The same is true of photography. You will never get good, by sitting on the couch and watching videos of how to be a great photographer. The only way is to get out there at least several times a month and make it happen. Get out there and do it! Practice, practice, practice!!
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Florida is rapidly becoming my favorite place to photograph wading birds, shorebirds, gulls, terns and for that matter any bird who loves water. Florida, is about 20% water, making it ideal for these various species of birds.
If you look at a map of Florida, pick out Orlando and draw a line west of the city and east of the city, you essentially have a belt consisting of heavy bird populations year around, but specifically in the Spring and Fall. In the first blog entry, I am going to specifically look at Orlando and what it has to offer in the springtime, and finish up in the next installment with Fort Desoto in western Florida.
Gatorland
Located in the Orlando area is a long running attraction called Gatorland. Gatorland is essentially that. It is a chunk of land with a high number of captive alligators. So what do alligators have to do with birds? Well, I am glad you asked. In essence there is a semi-symbiotic relationship between the alligators and the wading birds. You see, the alligator is a formidable foe for any animal, and so the fact they are there in the bird rookery, protects the wading birds from egg predation. That's right, the gators protect the newly hatched chicks from the evil predators lurking nearby. In return, the gators try to lunge at the birds from time to time to see if they can get a snack. It is a win-win for both animals. Don't worry the birds win most of the time.
So, the fact has been established that wild birds come here for protection during the breeding season, but I didn't tell you just how many. How about hundreds, all in a small rookery, with gators lurking in the waters below. It is something amazing to behold!
The rookery itself is a small area in the back of Gatorland that was designed so visitors can view the birds and the alligators pretty much living in peace and they are very photographer friendly. They offer day passes, photography passes and ticket add-ons to satisfy anyone's needs.
What Types of Birds Can I Expect?
During my visit, I saw almost entirely, wading birds. The liittle blue heron, great egret, snowy egret, wood stork, great blue heron, osprey, red-shoulder hawk and black vultures were all in attendance.
As you enter the rookery, you walk along a boardwalk, which winds down the west side of the pond. To the east, is a large pond where the alligators live and surrounding this pond are an abundance of plant life native to Florida. The birds can't resist this flora for nest building. Literally, you are surrounded by birds at almost every step. In the morning the sun will come up over the eastern side of the rookery, and illuminate the western nests and boardwalk, while in the afternoon, the sun shines on the far side of the pond. The morning time is best for taking shots of the nests themselves, and gathering portraits of the birds. Late afternoon is excellent for flight shots and environmental shots of the birds across the pond. Don't worry these birds are highly accustomed to humans and do not fear you hurting them or their chicks.
What Gear Do I Need?
The list of equipment you need is relative to what kinds of images you wish to capture. If you only want portraits of birds and shots of their nests, then a 70-200 would be the perfect lens. However, if you want shots of birds in flight, I highly recommend a long telephoto zoom such as the Sigma 150-600 or the Canon 100-400. As far as bodies, I recommend taking advantage of the full frame camera, if you have one, because it will give you the sharpest and cleanest image quality. Personally, I love my 1 Series camera and used it quite effectively (in my opinion). You may also want to bring a flash with a soft box attached, for portraits in the shadows, but that is completely optional. Fill flash did help a time or two for me. If you want to reach the far side of the pond for shots, I recommend a 500-600mm lens with possible use of a 1.4x teleconverter.
Sample Shot List
Here is a sample shot list that might help you:
- Tight head shot portraits of the herons/egrets in the morning hours along the boardwalk
- Flight shots: birds landing, taking off and in transit between nest and food sources
- Parent and chicks shot: look to take these in April and early May
- Shots of birds taking sticks to build nests : look to take these throughout the spring breeding season, but particularly in early April and late March.
- Possible silhouettes as night falls
So that is pretty much it for Gatorland. It is a great opportunity to photograph wild birds nesting and carrying out other important mating rituals. You can spend a week here and get the photography pass for $80.00 and it is money well spent! You will not be dissapointed here.
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I do not talk much about my dabbling in the microstock world, but I have had an experiment going on for about 2.5 years now and the experiment will end when I hit the 5 year mark. Since I am halfway through the experiment, it behooves me to let you know how I am progressing, and what I have learned along the way.
For those who don't know, let me briefly define microstock. Microstock is a method of selling imagery to the masses. The idea behind it is that there are many people out there who need imagery, but are not willing to pay 30 or more dollars to use the image. Sites like Shutterstock and Fotolia, provide a way for these customers to download images at a fraction of what they are actually worth to use on websites or business reports and so forth.
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=282722792 A link to one of my shutterstock images.
http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=282722792 A link to one of my shutterstock images.
OK, so it should immediately become apparent to you, by the above paragraph, that there indeed is a market for inexpensive images, much like there is a market for cheap carpet and furniture. There are those who prefer or simply cannot afford expensive flooring and solid wood furniture. Places like Walmart exist because of their economical selection, not because of the quality of their products. This is why I often call microstock agencies the Walmarts of the photography world. Because micros (what I shall call them from now on) charge so little, they are often looked down upon by the photography community, in general, and it is here that I want to spend a little time understanding both sides of the equation. For micros it is all about volume. They want to sell millions of images and charge very little.
In my 2.5 years of selling for micros, I have built up a fair portfolio (port) for wildlife photography, and this has allowed me to understand this marketplace better and how it both benefits and harms the photographer. Below I will list the pros and cons as I see them.
PROS
- Microstock forces you to think more about what makes a quality image. This is a big one for me that I think quite a few people gloss over. Because your images have to be tack sharp and noise free, you spend a great amount of energy thinking about making better photographs. Not only that, but the competition is so fierce that you have to make "the great shot." Except for isolated examples, you will produce better images and it will make you a better photographer. In essence it also gives you a reason to shoot.
- Getting into selling images on a micro is much easier than trying to get into "pickier" stock agencies like Offset. Once you get a portfolio of about 10 to 20 images, you can submit your application and unless your images are out of focus or noisy, you will get accepted. Although I have heard the QA has really slipped over the last few years.
- Other than creating the photograph, you don't have to expend any energy to sell the image. Yes, you can market your images by using tools provided by the agency, but you don't have to. If your images are good, they will get purchased and you sit back and collect royalties. It's really that simple, or is it? I will leave that for you to decide.
CONS
- You, as the photographer, will make peanuts! Realize, you are the blue collar photographer of the stock world. When you start with Shutterstock, you will start out making .25 cents an image for what are called subscription sales. Subscription sales are just that, they are customers who have purchased subscriptions, which allow them to download a set amount of images per month. This is, by far, what most of the Shutterstock customers use. It is usually the most economical for them.
If you are lucky, you will start to get some "On Demand" purchases of which you will make $1.88 per image. This sounds much better except, again, these are not the norm.
Finally, if you are really lucky and your images are good, you will start to see a few "Enhanced Licenses." These customers are those who buy your images to use in books, magazines or other media which requires multiple image licensing. Here you will make more of what your images are actually worth. You will make up to $80.00 an image. Don't get too excited, these are not commonplace. What this all amounts to are commission percentages around 20%.
I find this appalling, but there is not much to be done about it. I think 50% commission is much more fair as we are providing the actual product they are selling. They amount to the salesman. How many salesmen do you know making 80% commissions? Essentially, that is what stock agencies are. They are glorified salesmen and they have turned the table on the one producing the product. - Selling photographs cheaply devalues photography in the long run. This is probably the part of this whole system that saddens me the most. In the end, all we are doing is feeding corporations and they are the ones who get rich. We, the photographers, are willing to sell our images for peanuts and so the market will begin to devalue imagery. In the end we harm only ourselves and others who sell art. I often compare this to participating in class action lawsuits. The only real winner is the lawyer.
- Only certain genres sell well. This is not really relevant to just micros, as any general stock agencies will sell more images of two businessmen shaking hands as they do great, sweeping landscapes. There is just more of a market for imagery which explains and idea rather than just an image of something which is beautiful.
- The masses don't pick your images based on the fact they are stunning or well made. You may be surprised which images sell the best from your portfolio (port). I guarantee it will not be your best images that sell the best. Most likely it will be a technically nice image, but it will be an image that appeals to the masses. In the animal world, they are called pets. Images of pets will outsell the most compelling image of a bear or elk. Sad, but true.
- The agencies don't give a flying flip about how much commission you make. Why should they? They are in it to make money and its all about the profit. If photographers are willing to sell imagery for peanuts then they know that they won't mind a low commission. I think the solution to this is a guild, but with globalization, this becomes an impossibility. Photographers in India, for example, are willing to work for much less than a photographer from the UK or America. Having said that, an American and UK sponsored guild would at least put more pressure on them to raise commission and prices.
- There are no guilds to force a fair price for the images. I wanted to make this a separate bullet just so if you missed the above point, you might get it here.
- Not sustainable as a living in a 1st world country. In the end, my experiment so far has told me that this is not sustainable for a living or as a second income for a first world family. If you don't believe me, ask those who have been doing it for 10 years, with 7,000 images in their port. They will tell you that you can make money, but it is not really a living.
- Reviewers are pretty much untrained. Reviewers have received a bad reputation for rejecting images for focus when focus is not an issue. They are not generally photographers and so they do not know the "rules" about what an in focus image is. In wildlife, for example, I might have a very shallow depth of field. The eye and the head of a bird might be in perfect focus, but the end of the beak is not. Often images like this are rejected, making it even more difficult to make money. The deck is most definetly stacked against us.
Conclusion
If you want to fiddle around and sell your images online for small profits, or just for fun then micros are the place for you. Personally, so far, I find that this is not a sustainable option for even a second income. It will give you money to help you support your hobby. For example, buy new lenses or cameras, so If that is all you need then here you go, enjoy. Realize also, that you still have to pay taxes on all you make. Start running the numbers, and you will find out just how silly the income really is from selling stock. Specifically look at cost of equipment, computer hardware and image editing software and it really becomes something laughable. I think if we were making about $2.00 an image and we could get the public to pay this, then this would be sustainable.
So you may be asking yourself: then why is he still selling given so many cons? Well, that's a great question, and like I said, this is an experiment in the economy of the whole thing. So far my experience shows me this is a bad choice, but I am willing to give it more time. Perhaps at the end of 5 years and the end of this experiment my ideas will have changed and so I leave this post with some optimism for the future.
The sting of the cold winter air hammered my exposed face as I loaded all the gear into my vehicle, and headed out for the 3.5 hour drive to Cataloochee Valley in western North Carolina. Listening to the radio seemed to make the drive go faster and as I approached Cataloochee, my thoughts drifted to what I might find at this location. I had heard that this are was indeed a good location to view elk, but would I find the herd still there in late winter? Would they be active? Would they be in range of my 600mm lens? Many miles passed before my thoughts were interrupted by the stark voice of my GPS telling me I was nearing my exit.
Exiting interstate 40 at around 7:30 am, I began the long 10 mile climb through the mountain pass. The road through the pass turned to dirt, and I began to feel a little uneasy as my van slogged through mud, ice and ruts. At one point on this pass, there is a road section so narrow that only one vehicle can fit through at a time. The mountains surrounding Cataloochee tower 6,000 feet above sea level, and navigating through them would probably be best left to mules. Since I was fresh out of mules, on I pressed. Fortunately, I was the only one on the road that morning so navigation was fairly smooth thus calming my nerves.
After exiting the mountain pass, I was met with a nice two lane, paved road. Most likely put in by the US Parks Department. My immediate thought was, "why didn't they spend more money on widening the mountain pass?" One can only scratch one's head when dealing with the federal government. At any rate, it was nice to have the smooth ride for the remainder of the trip into the valley.
As I continued down the road into Cataloochee, there is a primitive camp site off to the left and a place where you can pick up auto-tour pamphlets and information on the elk. The camp site is closed during the winter and during this time much of the area looks rather abandoned for the most part. I decided to stop and pick up information on the elk. The contents of the elk pamphlet where mostly warning that an elk can cause serious injury and death. I wasn't too worried about the elk, but that road coming in looked far more dangerous than any elk and it proved to be later that day. More on that later.
Soon, the forest shrouded road gave way to an opening which is the beginning of the valley. To the right is a white house, and the manicured yard was full of wild turkeys. I estimated about 20 total in two different rafters. These birds were used to the traffic but still very skittish as is often the case with wild turkeys. I wasn't sure what the house was for, but maybe it was the ranger station. I saw no sign confirming this but it seems logical.
After another brief wooded area and some warning signs about staying back 50 yards from the elk, the trees opened up to another, larger field. The field stretched out on both sides of the road and the elk were at this location in force. I estimate about 20 elk, all cows and a few young elk. There were no newborn calves this time of the year. It was here, that I brought out the Canon 7D, and attached my Sigma 150-600 C. The elk at this location were not afraid of vehicles, nor people and they were so close to the vehicles, at times, that it was impossible to keep your distance. The general rule in national parks is , that it is OK to be within 50 yards if the animal approaches you, but you are not to approach an animal within 50 yards. Honestly this is very good advice, for the most part, because a bull elk can and will charge a person, and do great damage to said person. There was an elk out in Yellowstone, called #6 who last I had heard, had attacked 12 vehicles and mauled two men. So, yes these guys are serious, and especially so during the rut. In February, the bull elk are close to losing their antlers, and they have much lower testosterone; so it is generally much safer. This, however, makes for more boring photographs, but I will choose my life over a great image any day. I only spent a brief time with the cow elk, before heading down the road to see what else I could spot.
As I continued driving I crossed over Cataloochee Creek via two bridges before I spotted a bull elk moving through a large field to my right. I quickly pulled my car over on one of many pull-offs along the park road. This was a fairly large elk, sporting a 12 point rack, and was not collared or tagged. My guess is he must not be part of the early, established herd. There was no way to shoot from the road, so I got out of the car and mounted my camera on a tripod and began firing away. Unfortunately, do to a problem with my camera, I only got one sharp shot of this beautiful bull. This is an ongoing struggle with my Canon EOS 7D. I was unfortunately one of the many who purchased a lemon 7D. Some of these bodies experience random auto-focus issues, but that is a topic for another blog. By the time, I noticed the issue and brought out my backup 1D Mark II, the bull was out of range.
The rest of the day, I spent moving up and down the valley looking for another bull, but I never found one. I did take more shots of the main herd and also took some interesting shots of ice, but after 6 hours of shooting and scouting, I decided to pack up and head for home.
It was during the trip back through the mountain pass, that I was almost hit by another vehicle. I don't honestly know how close I was to the other vehicle, but it felt very close and he was moving at much to high a rate of speed on the pass. So, my point is that if you go on this trip, please be courteous of others and don't rush across the mountains on this road. No matter how good of a driver you think you may be on these types of roads, realize that many others are not, and you have to drive defensively in order to cater to those with less experience. Personally I don't recommend going over 15 on this road.
In conclusion, I can honestly say I had a pretty good time on this scouting venture to Cataloochee Valley. Go and have a good time viewing and photographing the elk. I guarantee you will enjoy every minute of it. By the time I got home, I had been on the road 7 hours and another 6 hours scouting the park. Needless to say it was very easy to go to sleep that night.
God Bless and Carpe Diem!
God Bless and Carpe Diem!
Announcements:
- On February 8th, I was given a nice gift from National Geographic by being honored with the photo of the day. The image they chose "The Call." This image is getting quite a pedigree of awards. If you are interested, I would buy this image now because as demand increases so will the cost. I am going to soon remove this from stock sales to limit mass purchasing. If you would like to purchase the image please visit the following link: https://www.etsy.com/listing/227667658/the-call-wall-art-ready-to-frame?ref=shop_home_active_16
- If you are a Christian, please pray for John Adamski, a fellow wildlife photographer. He has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. His only hope is a miraculous healing for long term life.
- "The Call" and one of my other images will be on exhibition at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences sometime in early spring. More to come on this event.
My Website: http://www.mattcuda.com
My Blog: http://www.mattcuda.com/index.php?/essays/
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