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Photographing Northern FloridaBy MIKE WALKER I have been keenly interested and involved in photography since high school. I think this is for a number of reasons: photography allows us to explore the world around us, no matter the exact composition of that world, it is-compared to the other visual arts-very fast, and it involves a fair
When I started into photography, it was all about film whereas now film is on its way out and digital is pretty much the ruling media. I see this situation both as a blessing and a curse: there's a lot to be gained from film insofar as its artistic merits and I feel students should learn film and conventional darkroom processing prior to moving into digital, although for day-to-day photography digital is hard to beat. With film, we had rolls and rolls of the stuff to keep up with and hey, if you messed up a shot, it was gone and so was your film. What is more, you didn't know if it was a good shot or not until the film was processed while with digital the immediate ability to scan over your work and tell if you're happy with a shot or wish to delete it is a huge boon to picture-taking. Plus, the very nature of digital media saves money in the amounts of film shot and processed which is a draw for many photographers as much or more than savings of time germane to digital. There is even software now availible, such as the program Exposure2, to emulate the look of various films with digital so the beauty of film is not fully lost to digital photographers. Northern and north-central Florida are wonderful regions to photograph: while we may lack for sheer contrasts such as the mountains of the West or the nearly-alien landscapes of Greenland or central Africa, Florida is treasure of various ecosystems and subtle beauty. Moreover, our natural environment is greatly enhanced by architecture and the visual culture of mankind. We have a wealth of history here and we also have a broad range of time periods and styles of architecture. Photography has always been for me a great way to get to know places and their history. My foremost training in photography, at the Savannah College of Art and Design, took place Savannah, Georgia, a most historic and lovely of cities. As touted as Savannah is for its architecture and general charm, I have found Gainesville, Orlando, Daytona, and a host of smaller Florida cities and towns to embody the best of those same qualities, too.
Likewise, in nature photography, we can via the camera look at the natural environment more broadly. It's always interesting that when I go out to some place like San Felasco Hammock State Park and run into other hikers, upon seeing my camera in hand they often ask me if I am shooting wildlife. My reply is that sure, if I am lucky enough to spot an animal, I would love to get a picture of it. But really, the experience is more about the lay of the land and the plant life because animals are expectedly shy and difficult to capture with the camera. Those who go into a state park expecting to get great photos of exciting animals such as bears, deer, bobcats, and snakes will probably leave with much lower expectations, however, it is possible to spot these creatures sometimes and moreover, there are so many amazing details of nature which often get overlooked: truly, a situation of not seeing the trees for the forest. While hiking in San Felasco not long ago, I happened across new growth of a vine coming out from an old, dead, tree stump. The contrast of these stages in botanical life prompted me to take a photo and that picture in many ways can be illustrative of the life cycle of Florida's forests in general. In another case at San Felasco, I was looking for snakes and lizards to photograph within a cluster of palmettos (Serenoa repens) when I realized that the palmettos themselves would make an interesting black and white photo. The distinct blades of the leaves of the saw palmetto and the habit of this plant to grow in vast clusters make it a classic visual reference to the northern Floridian landscape. This brings us to another nice advantage of digital photography: you can shoot at any ISO (standard for film speed: lower speeds require more light while higher speeds produce more grain but require less light) instead of being fixed to the speed of your film and, better yet, you can decide after shooting whether you desire each photo to be black and white or color. Of course, in the good old days of film, if you shot color film, you were stuck with color and if you shot black and white, that's what you had. Sometimes while shooting black and white film I would curse the fact because a really good oppurtunity for a color photograph came about and I wasn't prepared for it. Digital thankfully takes that situation out of the picture. So what do you need to get started? Ideally, a decent digital single-lens-reflex (SLR) camera and a couple lens, plus of course, a computer to upload your photos. A tripod is nice in many instances and the more (and better-quality) lenses, the better. An on-camera flash is very useful in some situations also, but for the most part I find that with a good lens and my SLR I am up for most daytime shooting I will encounter. While an SLR is ideal, the technological growth of point-and-shoot digital cameras over the past few years has been astounding: my first digital camera I purchased in 2003 and was a 3.2 megapixel point-and-shoot which cost around $300 at Wal-Mart at the time. Nowadays, you can get around an 8 megapixel point-and-shoot camera with many other more advanced features for the same price or even less. My digital SLR is a 12.8 megapixel camera and while the higher the megapixel rating the larger you can, in theory, print your photos; in practice 10 megapixel or even less should be high enough for an 11" x 14" print and I really don't know many folks who print much larger than that. Once your get into digital photography, you'll hear a lot about megapixel ratings and often with the theory that the higher the megapixels the better the camera: however, as I stated above, the megapixel rating (especially once you get above 8 megapixels) is mainly important for printing larger photos. As for image resolution and quality, what really matters the most (and this was true also with film photography) is the quality of the lens itself. With both SLR cameras and point-and-shoots the lens should be the most crucial factor when purchasing if you're looking for a serious instrument for high-quality photos. That said, while the amount one can spend on a camera set-up is nearly endless, for around $1000 you can probably get started with a decent SLR and one lens while for around $500 you can get a great point-and-shoot which will take quality photos, although lacking in some of the advanced features and in general in the lens quality of an SLR. The finer points of all the technical aspects of cameras can be covered in any of the many photo sites on the internet and magazines on the news-rack, but the most essential aspect of photography is really the photographer. A determined photographer with a decent camera is bound to produce pretty good results.
As for where, as in location, to photograph . . . the sky and the open road are really the only limits. I've taken photos I've been pleased with in the woods a few miles from my house and others from the roof of a parking garage at night in Daytona. It's just a
MIKE WALKER is a Gainesville, Florida based journalist and photographer. He is also an avid mountain biker and skateboarder. All photos for this story by the author. He may be reached at: cloudrace@prontomail.com
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