Aboard the Amphibian Ark

In response to the sheer number of extinct and endangered species of amphibians being threatened by development, climate change and pathogenic outbreaks, a group of biologists have put a rescue plan into play known as the "Amphibian Ark." Similar in concept to a seed bank, the Ark team collects species of amphibians, which are at risk, and houses them until re-release into the wild is deemed safe.

In the past decade there has been an increase in amphibian die-off and mutation due to a variety of factors including the chytrid fungus, the origin of which still remains a subject of debate. The group, which has been publicized by celebrity biologist Jeff Corwin, has created some innovative ways to get donors involved including a recent contest to name a recently discovered species of Osornophryne frog from Ecuador.

Room to Roam

The more time that I spend photographing animals in the field, the more that I've begun to pull away from the tight, crisp, maximum depth-of-field shots that I used to make early-on in my career. Initially, I was so intrigued by what I was photographing that I failed to capture much more than just a shell of subject. It took me a while to realize that there were so many folks who literally had thousands of scientifically accurate photographs in their files of just about anything that I could imagine. It also didn't take long for me to realize that the photographs that I was selling –that really grabbed viewer's attention– were not the perfectly sharp, show-it-all type of images. Jim Brandenburg certainly had a great influence on this departure in my work through his masterpiece, Looking for Summer but it was only this year that I believe that I've finally 'let go' of worrying about making images to fit a certain niche. My subject-matter is still –and I suspect will always be– nature based but I don't worry so much about getting it all in focus. What I'm looking forward is narrative, imagination and passion in my work. In order to reach their maximum potential, every artist must come to a place where he or she realizes that there will only ever be one of themselves in this world and that they will be doing the everyone a disservice if they deny their own unique voice.

I photographed this black rat-snake last weekend on a photo hike with my friend and fellow photographer Greg Kiniry. It was hard not to go in tight on this beautiful creature at first, but as it worked its way toward the rock I anticipated that there might be an opportunity to do something special. Although I had captured several frames before this image presented itself I knew that I wanted to keep the snake small in the frame and give him room to move through its environment. For me, there is a beauty in the image's simplicity that is both closer to what might encounter in the wild and also somewhat symbolic –not intentionally– of where I am at in my life. I don't want to be boxed in. I need room to expand; to grow. I am excited about this turn in my photographic experience and feel that I'm finally hitting my stride.

USA Today Macro Photography Article

For those of you who are just beginning your journey into the world of macro photography –and who didn't get enough of an overview from my posts, Intro to Macro Photography 1, 2 & 3 – check-out this article published in USA Today which gives a nice, albeit brief summary, of the basics of macro photography.

Swiss Picture Bank

I saw this in the May 2008 edition of Outdoor Photographer Magazine and thought that it was pretty interesting. Basically, the Swiss Picture Bank is a service that allows you to upload images through a web-portal for just cents per image –three cents per compressed images and 15 cents for uncompressed. The Bank will then "make multiple copies of every picture, encrypt them and secure them on redundant servers housed in data centers located throughout Switzerland." If you need to retrieve a lost image you can download it at any time. This is a certainly an innovative way to archive your images and you can tell you friends that you have a "Swiss Bank Account." The only downside to this concept is that I didn't think of it first.