Smoky Mountain Jan/Feb/March 2017 Journal … · 3 Smoky Mountain Journal of Photography FEATURES Image Capture 6 An Introduction to the Art and Science of Photographing Insects and

Smoky MountainJournal of Photography

Vol. 3 No. 1 Jan/Feb/March 2017

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3 Smoky Mountain Journal of Photography

FEATURES Image Capture

6 An Introduction to the Art and Science of Photographing Insects and their Kin by Kefyn Catley

15 On the Wing: Techniques for Imaging Birds by Tom and Pat Cory

42 Photographing Iridium Flares and the International Space Station by Kevin Adams

48 Perspective in Photography Part 1 by Tyson Smith

Image Processing

24 Smokies in the Abstract by Jerry Whaley

Natural History

Regional Images

Tyson Smith


DEPARTMENTS 5 Editor Thoughts

30 The Bear Truth Bears Thinking About by Bill Lea

36 Eye D the Image by Clay Thurston

37 When And Where Spring Wildflower Locations

by Roger Trentham

54 Book Reviews by Tyson Smith

56 Author Biographies

Tyson Smith

Editor’s Thoughts

With this issue we enter our third year of publication. As always I want to thank the readers who subscribe to the maga-zine and especially to the photographers who have contributed their time and knowledge by submitting articles for publication. It takes both subscribers and authors to be successful. I ask the subscribers to support the authors who have contributed. This will make it easier to get more articles in the future. Also, if you like the information that you see here, recommend a free sub-scription to your friends and organizations. The more subscrib-ers we have, the more we can entice professionals to contribute.

We are always open to suggestions for topics. If there is a sub-ject you would like to learn more about let us know and we will work to get an article into the magazine on the subject. You can also suggest people you would like to see contribute an article. Remember, we cover image capture, image processing and the natural history of subjects in the Southern Appalachian area. Those are broad topics so let us know who and what you are interested in.

There are some great topics covered in this issue. We still have frost many morning but the flowers are out and it is getting warmer. Roger Trentham writes about some of the places to find the wildflowers. Jerry Whaley introduces some of the more abstract, artistic things you can do with your images using mod-ern software. Bill Lea is back with more information about our black bears. Keflyn Catley is a first time writer for SMJOP with an article on photographing insects. He is a professor at Western Carolina University. Bird photography is covered by Tom and Pat Cory. I can’t wait to try to photography the space shuttle using what Kevin Adams includes in his article. Then I have the first part of a series of articles discussing perspective in photography and how it can be use with composition.

With the weather improving, the wildflowers blooming, and the trees budding it is time to get back out in the mountains.

FRONT COVER

Lerema accius. Clouded skip-per feeding on thistle in author’s yard.

Image by Kefyn Catley

Grizzly bear at the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellow-stone

Image by Tyson Smith

www.smjop.com

STAFF Publisher/Editor Tyson Smith

Designer Tyson Smith Web Master Kathy Smith

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS Roger Trentham

Jerry Whaley Bill Lea

ADVISORY COUNCIL Kevin Adams

Will Clay Bill Lea

Larry Perry Tony Sweet

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The Smoky Mountain Journal of Photography is pub-lished by Wild and Wonderful Photography, LLC. Of-fices are located at P.O. Box 729, Townsend, TN 37882. Copyright © 2015 by Wild and Wonderful Photography, LLC. Photo copyrights are retained by photographers. The contents of the magazine may not be copied or re-produced in any manner except with the express written consent of Wild and Wonderful Photography, LLC.

The opinions and facts stated by individual authors are their own and do not reflect the views of the publica-tion. Wild and Wonderful Photography, LLC does not review or test the products and claims of advertisers. Each reader must evaluate the products and services offered.

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T he very large bee came at us fast, buzzing angrily and jabbing into

startled faces. The students scat-tered like confetti in their rush to get off the narrow footbridge before they got stung. I watched with amusement for several seconds before I was jostled in the may-hem and almost fell into the creek myself. And over what you might ask? A curious hoverfly (Syrphi-dae) the yellowjacket mimic Milesia virginiensis that was just “checking us out” as is its want. All members of this family mimic various wasps or bees and are totally harmless, being unable to sting or even bite. Such basic natural history knowl-edge would have been very useful for turning chaos into a teachable moment for my students. Knowing field characters, for example like those that distinguish a bee mimic fly from an actual bee, or being able to identity this particular species by the very characteristic frequency of its buzz, is also vital for those of us that have been bitten by the bug of bug photography. It is the per-fect vehicle for photographers who delight in the tiny unseen details of nature and enjoy the challenge of stalking, framing and capturing an artistically pleasing and scientifi-cally accurate image. In this article I will discuss aspects of the art and science of making engaging and suc-cessful images of insects and their

kin.I hope to encourage or maybe

even inspire you to get out into the field to photograph these fasci-nating animals, and, through the process of trying to identify your images, learn something about the engrossing world of bugs. Bugs are ubiquitous and your backyard is a jungle waiting to be explored. After all bugs (arthropods), com-prise >85% of the animal life of the

planet. There’s no need to spend $1000’s traveling to Kenya when you can go on safari in your own backyard and find a mind-boggling diversity of animals. I have been fascinated with bugs for as long as I can remember and as a child was always poking around under stones and other buggy places for specimens for my collection. I got a microscope for my 6th birthday and I was hooked for life.

An Introduction to the Art andScience of Photographing

Insects and their Kinby Kefyn M. Catley

Milesia virginiensis hoverfly yellow jacket mimic


with a hand held crop sensor cam-era and a used, older (without vibra-tion reduction) 105mm or 90mm macro lens, and a close-up Speed-light kit (Nikon R1 or R1C1 set or Cannon’s equivalent). Use TTL metering controlled through the on-board flash in commander mode. Using the on-board flash alone to fill-in can also work well enough.

This is your ticket to the totally engrossing world of bugs which has all the elements of the hunt; acute observational skills, stalking your quarry, being hyper sensory and “thinking like a bug”. It also needs a good technique and lots of luck. Currently my kit comprises: Nikon 7100 24 MP DX, Nikon 810 36 MP FX both with a 1.17x mag-nifying eyepiece, Sigma 105mm

f2.8 macro, Nikon 200mm f4 micro, Nikon R1C1 close-up Speedlight kit, Manfrotto 685 automatic monopod with 496RC2 ball head. My shoot-ing default parameters are: manual, spot metering, manual focus, RAW, ISO 100-200, 1/160-1/250, f 11-22, auto WB. I find the Manfrotto 685 automatic monopod to be very useful and believe it to be the only model currently available that works on a principle that allows the instant up, down, and lock move-ments required to follow insects about. It’s not a magic bullet but does decrease the number of delete shots.

Alternate ways to get close-up without a dedicated macro lens include: reversing a 50 mm lens, using a multiplier, extension tubes or a diopter. For example a 300 telephoto mm with extension tubes or a multiplier gets you pretty close and may work well for larger insects. The critical issue with insect pho-tography is working distance. For instance at 1:1 the minimum work-ing distances are: 105mm macro 4.8 in (122mm), 200mm 10.2 in (269 mm), while the Cannon 180mm macro comes in at 9.5 in (240 mm). For comparison a 60mm macro, has a working distance only 3.9 in (100mm), not many insects will tolerate having a lens that close.

Technique

Small elusive subjects that re-quire both a deep depth of field and a fast shutter speed more often than not require the insect photog-rapher to bring their own sun in the form of close-up strobes. While it can be challenging, combining the variables of shutter speed, f stop, ISO, EV of the flash with good hand holding technique, does make for

Equipment

What equipment is needed to enter this largely hidden world? It requires a modest outlay compa-rable to other photography sub-dis-ciplines. For many years during the 80s and 90s I got as close as I could (which was not very close) with an East German Praktica 35mm film SLR camera and a Tamron 200mm telephoto with “macro function”. I traded up to a Pentax K1000 that accompanied me on many research trips to Chile and Australia ruining it in the process by getting sand inside while collecting spiders in the Atacama Desert.

Excellent images can be made

Volucella bombylans hoverfly bumblebee mimic


focus. This is made easier by the use of a $20 1.7x magnifying eyepiece. The fo-cal point I choose varies greatly with the particu-lar animal and can be the eye, wing pattern, mouthparts, or even certain seg-ments of a leg. It is often dictated by the orien-tation of the subject and what I need in focus to make a correct identification. The modus ope-randi for focus-ing under these circumstances, especially if like

me your vision is not optimal, is to approximate your focus point manually then move yourself and the camera in and out until the “in focus” spot in the viewfinder turns solid. It takes some practice but can produce good results. Focus stacking to get a very deep depth of field is fun but is almost impossible to use in the field for bugs. One exception might

be using a tripod in a very still and cool meadow just after sunrise to shoot immobile insects that have overnighted on plants.

The maxim that background is the most important aspect of macro is also true when shooting insects but we often have little opportu-nity to manipulate the background. Sometimes you just “gotta get the shot” and if the background is not or cannot be nicely blurred because the subject is so close, as in the millipede Apheloria montana, so be it. When possible take your time and shoot from an angle that best isolates your subject with as much clear space behind as possible to get a decent bokeh effect, as in the gnat ogre Holcocephala fusca. Be aware that the shallow throw of close-up strobes can result in undesirable black backgrounds especially when ambient light levels are low.

Framing needs to be carefully considered. For example, some

interesting shooting. As a rule you want to give your-

self as much working distance as possible especially with jumpy sub-jects. Start a “safe” distance away and keep shooting as you get closer. That way you will at least have some shots if your subject takes off. As with all macro work depth of field is the limiting factor. Suffice it to say that as magnification increases DOF decreases, often dramatically. Work with a small aperture (f11 and above), a shutter speed 1/160 or above, with a carefully selected focal point, keeping your camera as parallel to the plain of the subject as possible. This is much easier said that done especially when you have at most seconds to make a shot before your subject flies off. Using autofocus at such close distances is risky at best and I get much more consistent results using manual

Apheloria montana in yellow birch tree at 6400 ft on Richland Balsam summit

Holcocephala fusca a tiny 5mm robber fly (gnat ogre)


Paraphidippus aurantius emerald jumping spider, in author’s yard Calliphora livida blowfly in author’s yard

Platycotis vittata family of oak treehoppers, cove forest Cowee Mountains


to get 20% of keepers and of those 15% that are three stars and above. I am able to do all my post-production work, which I try to keep to a mini-mum, in Light-room and only use Photoshop in exceptional circumstances.

One of my favorite lazy pastimes is to be seated on the ground at a nectar source of

wild flowers such as fleabane (Erig-eron spp.) hand

holding a 105mm macro supported on my knees waiting for butterflies, bees, flies and the occasional beetle to come to feed. Often they become very engrossed and don’t seem to see you, or if they do don’t seem to care and allow themselves to be photographed at leisure.

On the opposite spectrum of effort, stalking and shoot-ing tiger beetles is a great challenge. I have spent many hours crawling around on my hands and knees on the hot sandbanks of Panthertown, NC photographing the extremely fast and nervous bronzed ti-

ger beetles Cicindela repanda repan-da. It is very difficult to get within 6 feet before the animal flies off, only to land 20 feet away and the whole process starts over. Knowing some-thing about their behavior helps to get unique images. Tiger beetles thermoregulate by a behavior called stilting. For optimal performance they maintain their body tempera-ture at just below their lethal limit of 102 degrees F. To do so the beetle faces the sun, lifts itself up off the very hot sand on “tiptoes” to cool down a degree or two and to allow the white hairs on its undersurface to reflect heat and light. This pose makes for a much more dramatic and interesting image shot from the side than the usual top down shot. With luck one can pre-focus on the subject, wait for the sun to burst through a cloud and take the shot as it stilts. Three other species are common in the woods of our region:

insects have very long antennae which if need to be included in the shot may require reframing or even using portrait orientation. This is often more than good composition as the antennal segments may well be required to correctly identify the subject.

When photographing very small insects (<10mm) even at 1:1 crop-ping (effectively the same as print-ing at larger sizes) is almost always required to some degree (see Erythe-mis simplicicollis the eastern pond-hawk). It can make some amends for having little time to compose and shoot because your subject is moving and/or on a substrate that is also moving. In such cases more pixels are always better. I use a 24mp DX format camera (cropped sensor) for longer reach and a 36mp FX camera (full frame).

In the Field

Shoot lots of frames! I am happy

Erythemis simplicicollis a female eastern pondhawk

Cicindela repanda repanda bronzed tiger beetle, stilting, Panthertown sandbanks


rain in a damp, shaded cove forest. Moths are a very diverse group

and whether they come to your porch light or you set up a black light there are always a great num-ber of species to shoot. Getting both of their outspread wings in focus can be a challenge. The wings often appear level when resting but the shot often proves that to be an incorrect assumption. It is often best to focus on the animal’s back and use the smallest f-stop you can get away with to increase DOF as much as possible. I quite often chill moths overnight in the fridge and stage them outside next morning, but you need to be very careful that they don’t lose a lot of wing scales in the process.

Getting the Shot

Become familiar with your local natural areas and walk them often; learn the plant species, when they flower, and what time of day they produce nectar. When shooting

bugs walk very slowly, cultivate your search image and have some sense of your subject’s visual acuity. Virtually all commonly encountered insects can fly and will do so more often than not as you approach them. Most insects have 1000s of facets in compound eyes with close to a 360 degree field of view…pho-tographers have little chance! How tolerant to disturbance is your sub-ject? Will it sit tight, fly off, or move around the backside of the leaf? Getting to know your local flora and fauna intimately will turn you into a steward of the planet if you are not already one, as well as improve your photographic skills. Obvious en-vironmental variables to take into account include; light levels, wind and movement. Casting a shadow over your subject when the sun is behind you is almost always fatal to your shot, as is inadvertently touching the hidden frame line of a spider web. Find out if the animal is feeding. Pollinating? Mating? A predator? Cryptic? All speak to the

the six-spotted green tiger beetle, Cicindela sexguttata, the splendid tiger beetle, Cicindela splendida and Apterodela unipunctata, the one-spotted tiger beetle. The last species is virtually flightless, very cryptic and hunts in the leaf litter. This makes it really difficult to spot as it disappears into the forest floor as soon as it stops moving. Most tiger beetles in our area have two generations of adults, one in spring/early summer the other in the fall and can be photographed as late as October. Tiger beetles are very photogenic but are all a challenge to get close to.

We are lucky to have many en-demic species of millipedes in the family Xystodesmidae in the moun-tains of WNC. They are brightly col-ored and make good subjects except that when you find one they are al-ways on the move. It is very difficult to get the whole animal in focus as their body undulates over the forest floor as they walk. The best time to find them is early mornings after

Cicindela sexguttata six-spotted green tiger beetle, cove forest

Cowee Mountains

Cicindela splendida splendid tiger beetle, cove forest Cowee

Mountains

Apterodela unipunctata one-spotted tiger beetle, cove forest

Cowee Mountains


Anthrenus verbasci varied carpet beetles (3mm) feed-ing on fleabane (Erigeron spp.)

Callosomia angulifera tulip tree silkmoth, came to light in author’s yard

Sigmoria nantahalae Nantahala millipede, cove forest Cowee Mountains

Cherokia georgiana flat-backed millipede, cove forest Cowee Mountains


light. Depending on the species you might have 20 seconds or several minutes before it warms up enough to fly or move.

Become a Citizen Scientist

A nice image is very reward-ing but a nice image of a correctly identified animal with location data is a piece of scientific evidence that will become increasingly valuable as the climate continues to warm. Become a citizen scientist and share and document your local arthro-pod fauna online. BugGuide www.bugguide.net/node/view/15740 is a wonderful free resource that encour-ages anyone to upload an image and ask for a free ID. Experts across the county are happy to oblige and are usually very fast at getting back. It’s neat to compare numerous shots of the same bug from different locali-ties and a great way to start on your identification journey. There are many other online and print sources, some of which are in the resource section. As the planet continues

to warm some of today’s common insects will become tomorrow’s rari-ties. Maintaining and contributing to a database of geographical and tem-poral distribution is vital in detecting such trends. We can all contribute to this important endeavor.

One of the many reasons why shooting bugs is so fascinating is that you will never photograph all the bugs in your local area. This is what keeps me out in the field with my camera. Every year I find species I have never seen before, even around my home. Many adult insects only live for a week or two each year and it’s a continual sur-prise as to what will show up and when. So, now that spring is just around the corner grab your camera on a mild day and get out to hunt for early overwintering butterflies like the comma Polygonia comma or mourning cloak Nymphalis antiopa. I can’t wait for this year’s crop of wild flowers and the bugs that they attract. Just yesterday I saw my first butterfly of the year a beautiful blue spring azure. I’ll look out for you on the trail!

importance of knowing your subject in advance and will greatly increase the probability of getting a good shot.

Encourage wild plants in an area of your yard by sparing the weed whacker. Leaving tall asters like thistles Cirsdium spp., yel-low leafcup Polymnia uvedalia, and goldenrod Solidago will pay great dividends, especially later in the year as nectar sources become scare. If you don’t have milkweed (Asclepias spp.) in your yard, then please consider planting some. It hosts several spectacular insects as well as the monarch butterfly larva whose populations have crashed precipitously largely because milk-weed is disappearing. Some of my best shots have been taken on these left to flower “props” a few feet from my back door. Sometimes the animal you want to photograph will never keep still (centipedes come to mind). Infrequently I will stage such specimens by keeping them in the fridge overnight and staging them on a piece of bark in soft natural

Resources:

The Insects: An Outline of Entomology 5th Edition Gullan and Cranston.

Insects: Their Natural History and Diversity: With a Photographic Guide to Insects of Eastern North America 2006 by Stephen Marshall

Peterson Field Guide to Moths of Northeastern North America (Peterson Field Guides) 2012 by Beadle and Seabrook.

Butterflies of North America (Kaufman Field Guides) 2006 by Brock and Kaufman.

Beetles of Eastern North America Paperback 2014 by Arthur V. Evans.

A Field Guide to the Tiger Beetles of the United States and Canada: Identification, Natural History, and Distribution of the Cicindelinae 2nd Edition Pearson et al.

Bumble Bees of North America: An Identification Guide (Princeton Field Guides) 2014 by Williams et al.

The Bees in Your Backyard: A Guide to North America’s Bees 2015 by Wilson and Messinger Carril.

Dragonflies and Damselflies of the East (Princeton Field Guides) 2012 by Dennis Paulson.

Tracks & Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: A Guide to North American Spe-cies 2010 by Charney and Eiseman.

Spiders of the North Woods, Second Edition (Naturalist Series) 2013 by Larry Weber.

Levi, H. W. (1990). Spiders and their Kin. Golden Guide, Golden Press, NewYork.

Gaddy, L. L. (2009). Spiders of the Carolinas (American Naturalist), Kollath-Sten-saas Pub.

Bradley, R. A. & Buchanan S. (2012) Common Spiders of North America, Univer-sity of California Press.

Web resources: http://ento.psu.edu/public/insect-imagesGood collection of arthropod identification links

http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740

http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu

Macrophotography: Close Up Photography in Nature 2014 by Gerlach, John and Barbara.

Macro Photography for Gardeners and Nature Lovers: The Essential Guide to Digital Techniques 2008 by Alan L Detrick.


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Macrophotography: A Bug’s-Eye View of Nature.

June 5-9th 2017 with Dr. Kefyn Catley at Highlands Biological Station, Highlands, NC.

Workshop fee only $400.

More details at http://highlandsbiological.org/summer-2017/

Macrophotography: A Bug’s-Eye View of Nature (June 5-9) Dr. Kefyn Catley, Western Carolina University, Highlands Biological Station, Highlands, NC. Workshop fee only $400. More details at http://highlandsbiological.org/summer-2017/

This weeklong workshop focuses on the intersection of art and science as exemplified by the non-trivial task of making successful photographs of insects and other arthropods in their natural habitat. The aim is to create images that are at the same time rewarding works of art and pieces of scientific data that can be shared in the biodiversity corpus. It addresses the biology behind the photograph for photographers and the art behind the image for those with a biol-ogy background. The class is taught largely in the field, with lectures, post production work and group image critiques when the light and/or weather do not cooperate. It provides participants from a wide variety of photographic as well as scientific backgrounds an ideal forum for the syn-ergism between photographic technique, scientific knowledge, and artistry to produce a memo-rable learning experience. All skill levels are welcome. Samples of my images can be found here: www.hiddennatureimages.com

http://highlandsbiological.org/summer-2017/

Humans have always been fas-cinated with birds so it is only

natural that, as photographers, we have that fascination. Perhaps it is the beauty and grace of a bird in flight, or their freedom to “…break the surly bonds of earth” seemingly at will that draws our attention. Perhaps it’s our wonder at how a hummingbird weighing just ounces

can unerringly cross 500 miles of open water and return to the same feeder it left months ago. Or per-haps it’s the challenge of capturing a truly beautiful moment in time, a bird landing, taking off, or feed-ing a chick in a nest. Whatever the reason, many of us spend countless patient hours trying to capture that truly special image of our avian sub-

jects. It’s our hope that this article may help you in some small way with the challenging, but immense-ly gratifying, endeavor of imaging birds in motion.

Basics: Knowledge and Equipment.

On the Wing: Techniques for Imaging Birds

by Tom & Pat CoryMacrophotography: A Bug’s-Eye View of Nature.

June 5-9th 2017 with Dr. Kefyn Catley at Highlands Biological Station, Highlands, NC.

Workshop fee only $400.

More details at http://highlandsbiological.org/summer-2017/

Macrophotography: A Bug’s-Eye View of Nature (June 5-9) Dr. Kefyn Catley, Western Carolina University, Highlands Biological Station, Highlands, NC. Workshop fee only $400. More details at http://highlandsbiological.org/summer-2017/

This weeklong workshop focuses on the intersection of art and science as exemplified by the non-trivial task of making successful photographs of insects and other arthropods in their natural habitat. The aim is to create images that are at the same time rewarding works of art and pieces of scientific data that can be shared in the biodiversity corpus. It addresses the biology behind the photograph for photographers and the art behind the image for those with a biol-ogy background. The class is taught largely in the field, with lectures, post production work and group image critiques when the light and/or weather do not cooperate. It provides participants from a wide variety of photographic as well as scientific backgrounds an ideal forum for the syn-ergism between photographic technique, scientific knowledge, and artistry to produce a memo-rable learning experience. All skill levels are welcome. Samples of my images can be found here: www.hiddennatureimages.com


http://highlandsbiological.org/summer-2017/

and “Birding North Carolina.” Several states have documented birding trails. Most reasonably large cities and towns have birding clubs, and we have found birders to be extremely helpful and kind in sharing information provided that you show them you are an ethical bird photographer. A word of cau-tion, there is a difference in being a situation where you can spot a bird versus where you can actually photograph a bird.

Ethical Bird Photography: Simply put, an ethical bird photographer, as any ethical wildlife photographer, never behaves in a way that disturbs his subject or causes his subject to change its natural behavior. Spe-cifically, observe and photograph from a distance that does not stress the bird. Do not try and “cause” a behavior; learn to wait patiently

for your subject to naturally engage in the behavior you want. Never disturb--or even approach--an ac-tive nest. In other words, just use common sense.

The equipment you will need can be surprisingly simple and afford-able or, as you progress and become more and more interested in bird photography, can be surprisingly complex and expensive. We person-ally prefer zoom lenses for our in-flight and motion imaging as they give us more flexibility than a fixed focal length lens. Here are some options:

1. You’re just beginning and want to photograph birds around your bird feeder or in “captive settings” such as a zoo aviary, or birds at a rehabilitation center. We

Learn bird behavior! Learn all you can about birds, and specifically learn all you can about the birds you want to photograph. Learn about local species, learn about bird migration, learn about birding hot spots. Learn about nest build-ing behavior. And learn about what time of year the birds will be in your area and when their plumage is the brightest, which is often during the breeding season. In short, learn everything you can, because the more you know about bird behav-ior, the more payoff you’ll receive for the time you patiently--do learn patience--spend in the field.

Resources on bird behavior abound. There are books, Inter-net articles, apps, and dvd’s about birds. We particularly like birding guidebooks to specific areas such as the Falcon guides “Birding Florida”


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2. You’ve become really inter-ested in bird photography. We suggest something like a Canon 7D-Mark II and a 100-400mm lens (or the Nikon equivalent.) With the crop fac-tor of an APS-size sensor you now have a lens with a focal length of roughly 640mm, still somewhat hand-holdable for flight images, but also a lens which will work well on your tripod with a ball head and give you a reasonable amount of reach. Add a 1.4 tele-ex-tender and you now have al-most 900mm of focal length--handy for small birds or birds at distance. Or you might con-

sider either the Sigma Sport or Tamron G2 150-600mm zoom lenses-very good optics for the price. Their only drawback is a maximum aperture of f/6.3 which does limit your imaging to well-lit situations.

3. You’re really hooked! Consider a Canon or Nikon 200-400mm f/4 zoom, again about 550-600mm on a crop sensor body, or a fixed 500-600mm f/4 lens. Add a 1.4 converter and a Wimberly-style tripod head–this type of head will support these lenses and still allow you to track moving birds. Hint: you may be able to find these lenses on the used market which will save you several thousand dollars. And don’t forget the rental option. Several companies will rent you a Super telephoto lens for a reasonable price--not a bad idea if you only use the lens a few days a year.

Technique

If you’re just beginning your ca-reer as a bird photographer consider imaging birds at zoo aviaries, reha-bilitation centers, or in your own backyard at your feeders. (J. Chris

suggest an entry level DSLR such as a Canon Rebel with either a 70-300mm lens or Canon’s 55-250mm (35mm equivalent=approximately 100-400mm). The 55-250mm is a surprisingly good lens for the price and actually works very well for hand held flight photography if you’re reason-ably close to your subject. You may not look professional with this relatively tiny lens, but you’ll get some pretty nice images. Nikon offers pretty much the same equipment, as do a number of other manu-facturers.


ers tried to get out to get a picture the hawks would invariably take off. Hint: you can use a beanbag on your car’s windowsill to provide extra support.

We really enjoy photographing birds in their natural habitats, par-ticularly birds flying or interacting with other birds. Here again, knowl-edge of bird behavior and network-ing with birders and other photog-raphers can be invaluable.

Once we find our subjects and set up our equipment, our first con-cern is getting proper exposure, a somewhat challenging proposition particularly with flying birds. While there are many different techniques that bird photographers swear by,

we have had reasonably good suc-cess with the following:

Set your camera on the A or Av setting--aperture preferred--and open your lens to its largest open-ing-f/5.6 for our lenses. Next take a meter reading of the sky and set your ISO high enough that you have a shutter speed of at least 1/1000 or preferably 1/2000 of a second. (Birds are fast: a puffin, for example, can hit about 45 miles per hour at full throttle). Finally, if you have a bright blue sky, use your exposure compensation button and open up about 2/3 to 1 f-stop. If you have a white sky, open up between 1&1/3 and 2 f-stops.

Warning! This technique

Hansen’s book Secrets of Backyard Bird Photography is an excellent resource for setting up your feed-ers and props.) With practice you’ll be able to create some really nice images while becoming comfortable with your equipment.

It always pays to go where the birds are used to people. The Alliga-tor Farm in St. Augustine, Florida, has a wonderful natural rookery with a boardwalk that allows you to be very close to a variety of birds. We’ve gone in each of the months from February to May and always come back with some great images. Hint: You can purchase a photog-rapher’s pass to the Alligator Farm which will allow you to enter an hour before it’s open to the public and also gives you unlimited admis-sion for a year. Another great place is Gatorland near Orlando, Florida, somewhat similar to the Alligator Farm. The Anhinga trail in Ever-glade National Park can provide awesome opportunities for close up images of birds engaged in a variety of behaviors.

Many wildlife areas have roads that allow you to drive around and often be close to their birds. Keep in mind that you can use your car as a blind--on a recent trip to Texas we were able to photograph a number of hawks from our car: when oth-


http://amzn.to/2mVBPSL

http://amzn.to/2mVBPSL

exposure or you’ll blow out the white feathers on the bird. And although it may not be a significant problem, adding exposure by using your exposure compensation button may result in a slower shutter speed being selected since your lens is already going to be at its maximum aperture, so give yourself some leeway by choosing a slightly higher ISO. It’s always a good idea to check your histogram to make sure your settings are giving you a good expo-sure.

Another technique that many of our friends use is to put their cam-

era in the manual mode and then to take a meter reading off of a neutral subject--green grass is pretty close to neutral--that is in the same light they anticipate their subject bird will be in--and lock in that reading manually. Again, assuming your bird is basically a neutral toned bird such as a Sandhill Crane, you should get a reasonably good exposure, provided that your bird stays in the same general light as your neutral toned subject.

Note: Although DSLRs are much better at handling digital noise than they used to be--and continue to get better and better--you may still want to use digital noise suppres-sion software if you’re using a high ISO. We personally would rather deal with digital noise than lack of sharpness.

Focusing: Although we usually teach “focusing on the eyes” in our wildlife lectures, with birds we sug-gest focusing on the body--the eyes are just too small a target. We also use “bump” focusing: continually fo-cusing as we track the moving bird by hitting our shutter or focusing button. Note: If you have trouble

“finding” a flying bird through a 600mm or longer focal length, consider getting a red dot finder to mount on your camera. Line up the red dot with the focusing point in your viewfinder on a target about

will give you a fair number of pretty good exposures, but it’s by no means going to get every exposure right. If you’re tracking a bird across the sky the actual brightness of the sky will change as you get nearer or further from the sun requiring adding or subtracting exposure. The same is true if your subject is some-times in the sky and sometimes flying in front of trees or another dark area. Also, we’re assuming your bird is basically neutral toned: if you happen to be imaging a white pelican or white ibis, for example, you actually need to decrease your



often assume interesting wing-body positions, not to mention that they’re flying slower and are easier to track.

3. Nest-building time presents great opportunities to photo-graph birds carrying branches or other materials as they fly over.

4. Do watch the light: a bird may seem nicely illuminated but beware of having the head in shadow while the rest of the body is in the sun.

5. Although we prefer to pho-tograph birds in early or late light it’s possible to get some really nice images with the

sun directly overhead. This type of illumination can bring out the translucence of the wing and great feather detail.

6. A bird feeding its young is al-ways a nice image. We often use a step stool or stepladder to give us a little elevation and a clearer picture of the young that often are at the bottom of the nest. Remem-ber to keep your distance so you don’t stress the bird.

7. While it’s fun to do close-ups of flying birds, occasion-ally back your zoom off and include a small image of the bird in the vastness of the sky.

8. We like to create a “water-color” look to some of our bird images. This technique works best on a white sky day. We overexpose the image by about 1 f-stop and then tweak it in Lightroom, usually adding contrast. The resulting image has a “high-key” look, with the bird appearing to fly in an almost pure white sky.

9. Also consider backing off on your lens to include images of the bird in its environment-

-again, watch your exposure if you’re photographing the

equal to where your birds will be. Then you can use your red dot finder to track the bird and rely on your camera’s autofocus to give you a sharp image.

Adding Art to Technique

The following are our sug-gestions for creating nice images of birds. Don’t hesitate, however, to try your own ideas.

1. Flying birds generally, but by no means always, look better with their wings in the “up” position rather than “down.”

2. Birds landing and taking off


11. Birds flying up-at a diagonal across your frame-will look more dynamic than birds fly-ing horizontally.

We hope you’ll have as much fun and enjoyment as we do pho-tographing our feathered friends.

Remember to practice ethical bird photography and get some great im-ages

birds against a dark back-ground.

10. Silhouettes of birds against a beautiful sunrise-sunset can make for very nice images. Simply expose for the sky and the bird will usually turn into a silhouette.


Cory Photography Tom and Pat Cory tomandpatcory.com

Wilderness Wildlife Week, Pigeon Forge, TN

May 12, 2017 1:30 to 2:30 Imaging the Beauty of Flight

May 13, 2017 9:00-1:00 Nature Photography Workshop

with Kendall Chiles and Daniel Dempster

Our half-day small group workshops combine formal instruction and time photographing the subjects:

Wildlife Photography Workshop

Chattanooga, TN, February 24, 2018

Macro/Close-up Photography Workshop Signal Mountain, TN, March 3, 2018

We also offer programs and workshops for camera clubs and other organizations.

Full details on workshops and programs are on our website

Check out our photographs at Pat-cory.pixels.com


T aking great images in the South-ern Appalachian Mountains

can be challenging for a number of reasons. We work through the rain, the wind, overcast skies and levels of humidity that rival the tropics in order to produce the best repre-sentations of these mountains we

can. The pursuit of good images in great light is often a struggle – but it’s also a thrill when you make it happen.

The image at the beginning of this article is definitely not docu-mentation. It is more a representa-tion of how I feel when out photo-

graphing autumn in the Smokies. If you think your only mission is to accurately document what you see with little to no interpretation, this article is really not for you. If you feel a need to interpret your sur-roundings and capture the feelings you get from being in these moun-

Smokies in the Abstractby Jerry Whaley

Cosby from the Foothills Parkway – Mountains, valleys and a high vantage point create a visual introduction to the Smokies


range of light that the human eye can see. So, the hardware is not perfect. But, neither is the photographer.

We work with, or work around, all those issues to create the best images we possibly can. We document. But we also interpret. The mere act of composition is a matter of inter-pretation. As photographers, we decide what to leave in, and what to leave out – just as I did with the Turk’s Cap Lily & Dead Tree at Cling-mans Dome. It is my composition, my interpreta-

tion. Composition is the beginning of our life as artists. We chose what to show our viewers. We can, and often do, further manipu-late the image by applying a “creative” shutter speed as in when we use a slow

shutter speed to make water look as if it is flowing, or use a fast shutter speed to freeze a bird in mid air. We isolate our subjects by using wide-open apertures. We capture the foreground in our grand landscapes by using a very small aperture.

Yes, we interpret. In this photo I decided the young tree in the fore-ground was just as important as the colorful ridges in the background

– my interpretation. But how far are we willing to go in the direction of interpreting our images? Neutral density filters allow us to make dis-tinctive images with very long shut-ter speeds to manipulate the way water or clouds look in the image. Very good sensors now allow us to make images of stars and the milky way at night while also including parts of the foreground that we can light paint with a flashlight. Super cool. We experiment with double exposures and extremely shallow focusing to isolate a subject. These techniques can be achieved with hardware (cameras, lenses, filters) used by most photographers. Com-position and these hardware tech-niques are the interpretive tools

tains, then read on. Photographers, in general, have

a hard time thinking of themselves as artists. Our tools capture the scene in front of us in an accurate manner, or so we think. Actually, no camera, no lens, and no sen-sor will ever capture a scene in a totally accurate manner. The light from a scene enters a lens that has focusing anomalies between the different frequencies of light. The lens distorts the image that hits the sensor slightly. Depending on your shutter speed, vibrations from the shutter and mirror movement may introduce a slight blur to the image. Sensors have finite resolu-tion, and no sensor has the dynamic range that would let it capture the

Dead Tree & Turk’s Cap Lily – The dead tree is a stark reminder of how fragile life is, contrasting with the vivid

shapes and color of the lily

Young Tree & Appalachian Autumn – Displaying nature’s quest to survive, this young tree watches over the mature forest below


some extra punch, or it can drive your colors into the stratosphere. It all depends on how you use it. Oh, another thing the Saturation slider can give you is an instant black & white image – just take the Saturation slider all the way down to quickly see what your image looks like in black & white.

Why would you want to go beyond the basic controls on your camera, or on in your typical post-processing software? Maybe for you that is a step too far. But for me, I like to go beyond the norm in order to explore the interpretive power of

the type of images I am so familiar with. You can bring a new dimen-sion into your images by pro-ducing highly manipulated versions that give a new perspective to the familiar. The Van Gogh like inter-pretation of this patch of flowers evokes the feeling of rhythm and motion that I experience

when I am among them.All the images in this article are

heavily manipulated interpreta-tions. They may not even be a good representation of reality. But then again, they may be. When dreaming, some people see images like these. Is that real? The human mind lives in at least two worlds, the real and the imaginary. Could both those worlds be real, or both imaginary? Do you find this question to be at all thought provoking? If so, you might find producing abstract images to be loads of fun.

Sit down beside the trail to rest during a hike. Close your eyes. What do you feel? Cool mountain air? The wind? Warm sun on your face? Sweat burning your eyes? Now, what do you hear? Rustling leaves? Birds chirping? Squirrels barking? Owls hooting? Water flowing? What do you see in your mind’s eye? Are the colors vivid? Are the shapes

that help provide viewers with a good photographer’s vision.

But what if you want to go be-yond what hardware and compo-sitional skills can provide? Way beyond. Well, post-processing software can offer a world of oppor-tunity to the creative photographer to manipulate an image in ways that bring out the most extreme, or most subtle, vision for an im-age. To begin with, the adjustments available in Lightroom or any other processing software can be used creatively. The Contrast slider can give you a very edgy image, as can the Clarity slider though it works mostly on the mid tones. The Vi-brance slider can pull the less satu-rated parts of an image up to match the more saturated areas, or make colors dull and lifeless. The Satura-tion slider can give the whole image

Abstract Autumn Forest – A complete abstrac-tion of an autumn forest is vivid, intriguing and

familiar

Brown Eyed Susans – The slightest breeze will cause long stemmed wildflowers to sway and dance as shown in this rendering


and keeping the things I do like. If the image is dramatic, or if it evokes a strong feeling, I tend to keep it. If it turns out to just be weird and does not touch me in any way, I toss

it. Usually, the more graphic the original photograph, the better the abstract rendering turns out.

Don’t expect the same crowd that likes your artistic photographs to like your abstract renderings. You will quickly experience confused comments from those that know your work and suddenly see an abstract image with your name on it. When impressionist painters first showed their work, people did not know what to make of it. It was considered by most to be garbage. Now those paintings from the early impressionist masters sell for mil-lions.

You can begin to create impres-sionist images with plugins for Lightroom or Photoshop. You can also purchase Topaz, or download NIK (free) from Google and play around with those post-processing programs. Another very easy way to start creating abstract images is with your smartphone. I use Pain-teresque, Tangled FX, and Prisma most of the time, but there are

and forms free flowing? Do those rustling leaves turn into a natural soothing symphony for you? Does the sound of flowing water make you feel like your own life-energy reservoir is being slowly filled? When the shapes and sounds get re-ally weird, do you suddenly wake up, or open your eyes to see if you are still in the real world? I do. Would you like to share what you have just experienced in your momentary escape from reality while relaxing trailside? Abstract art can help.

Reality is challenging. We all need a little escape from reality from time to time. Think about the subjects you love to photograph. Try to imagine them in the abstract. Flowers are good subjects for ab-straction because they are so shape-ly and unique. Subjects with a lot of contrast often look good when rendered as an abstract. I like to try out a number of processing meth-ods and then review the results, weeding out the things I don’t like

Hidden Waterfall in the Rhododendron – Many mountain features are almost hidden by the biological diversity of the Southern Appalachian Mountains

Appalachian Trail Vista – The Southern Highland forests offer majestic beauty that lends itself to artistic interpretation


Rhododendron in the Forest – Recognizing the graphic beauty of everyday scenery is

key to creating dramatic images

Pink Ladys-Slippers – Wildflowers offer unique shapes and colors that help render

interesting abstract images

Sunset near Carvers Gap – Silhouetted trees caught at sunset allow a graphic, painterly

image to be created


There is no “perfect” to an abstract image because there is no reference to any other existing image. It is totally the artist’s vision, the artist’s choice.

As you dig deeper and deeper into the art/craft we call photogra-phy, you will find many challenging directions to take that will help keep you interested in the medium. Today, many millions of people enjoy taking photos, but few think about why they do it the way they do. I find it much more creatively fulfilling to move in a direction with a purpose. If an image “speaks” to a viewer, I think it can be judged to be art. Abstract photographic images

often speak to viewers in ways that straight photographs do not.

many other apps available to create interpretive images. Find one you like that can render images that excite you.

I enjoy the graphic nature of the images I render as abstracts. I can see them being used as book covers or illustrations in children’s books. It’s fun to freak out my photo friends with an image they look at and “don’t quite know what to make of it.” Remember, by creating an abstract version of an image you are going way beyond a simple artistic rendering. You are creating what is in your mind’s eye. Technical as-pects of the image take a back seat to the artistic aspects of the image.

Wildflowers in the Mountains – My personal vision of wildflowers in the mountains is captured in this

dramatic image

Sunrise at Clingmans Dome – In this image, I distorted reality to offer my personal vision of the rising sun


Image by Bill Lea

M any of us spend a lot of time photographing in the Great

Smoky Mountains and sooner or later, most of us will encounter a black bear, which is great! But how much do we really know about bears? The purpose of “The Bear Truth” series is to explore the won-der of black bears together. Bears are such amazing animals but they are soooo misunderstood. So, lots learn more about them together!

Just how smart is a black bear?

Trying to determine the intelligence of any animal always presents a challenge. Observed behaviors and physical characteristics often lead to some basic generalizations. For instance, black bears tend to be curious animals, indicating a cer-tain level of intelligence. However, such a statement really doesn’t tell us much. Physical characteristics, such as the fact that bears have the largest brain per body length of any land mammal, certainly imply a

higher degree of intellectual capa-bility. However, once again such a statement often leaves us with more questions than answers. To truly understand the intelligence of the black bear, we must enter the bear’s world, examine specific behaviors, and then draw our own conclusions.

Studies show that a black bear may travel more than a hundred miles to a specific food source, such as a blackberry patch or a stand of

The Bear Truth

Bears Thinking About

By Bill Lea

Image by Bill Lea


Image by Bill Lea Image by Bill Lea

Image by Bill Lea


Image by Bill Lea

Image by Bill Lea


white oak trees for acorns. Cubs following their mother to the site will often return alone in subse-quent years. How do cubs remem-ber how to find their way back to the same food source, a year or more later? Not only do the cubs retain information about how to return, but the young bears also recall the proper time of year to make the journey. A bear remem-bers to return to a blackberry patch in the summer when the fruit is ripe or to travel to a favorite white oak stand when acorns mature in the fall. Such abilities reveal great intelligence.

Oftentimes “nuisance” bears are trapped by wildlife officers, trans-ported as far as a couple of hundred miles away, and then released into a completely unknown area. Yet, time after time, we hear of cases where such bears return all the way back to their home territory. How can that happen? The bear has an internal homing ability that we can-not begin to understand. If we were placed in a trap, driven hundreds

of miles to an unknown location, and then told to return through the woods on our own without any help, most of us would never make it back home. When we really think about this, a bear’s ability to process new information is quite impressive!

A few years ago, I finally came to understand the true intelligence of the black bear. I was photograph-ing a young bear as she prepared to cross a small creek. For some reason, she did not want to wade or swim across the creek. Maybe she just wanted to avoid the muddy bot-tom. She eyed a nearby log floating on top of the water. It extended about three-quarters of the way across the small creek towards the opposite bank. The bear walked the full length of the log and when near the end, she jumped the rest of the way to the bank and dry land. After foraging a while she was ready to return. The bear cautiously stepped into the water, grabbed the end of the log with her mouth, and slowly backed-up. She dropped it at the

very edge of the bank. Then most surprisingly to me, she opened her mouth and firmly pressed the end of the log into the soft mud. With her “bridge” now secured, she walked across the log to the other side of the creek. It took me a moment to fully comprehend the significance of what I had just wit-nessed. I had observed a bear use a tool (the log) to accomplish a task (cross the creek). In other words, reasoning took place as the bear moved and used the log to solve a specific problem, i.e. how to cross the creek without walking through its muddy bottom. That afternoon, I gained a totally new respect for this incredibly intelligent animal.

Obviously, a bear would function poorly in the Library of Congress, but we have hardly begun to under-stand the true intelligence of black bears in the world in which they live. Take some time to observe and reflect. You might find the intel-lect and reasoning capability of the black bear rather overwhelming. It certainly “bears thinking about!”

Image by Bill Lea


Bill Lea - Nature PhotographyPhoto Tours & Workshop Schedule

Black Bear Photo ToursAug. 10-14, 16-20, 22-26, or Aug. 27-31, 2017

For more information:http://chrisnorcott.com/black-bear-workshop-2017/

For more information:

Contact Bill Lea: [email protected]

Winter in Yellowstone & Grand TetonsLate January 2018

Everglades Photo TourMarch 8 - 11, 2018



www.BillLea.com www.Facebook.com/BillLeaPhotography www.Bill-Lea.artistwebsites.com

GSMIT Spring Photo WorkshopApril 21 - 24, 2017


http://gsmit.org/event/spring-photo-workshop/

Savannah Photo TourLate March/Early April 2018



Smoky Mountain Foto FestSeptember 13-16, 2017


https://smokymountainfotofest.com/

Send you guess for the animal that owns this eye to:[email protected]

Last MonthsEye-D Challenge

Praying Mantis

Eye D the ImageBased on Images by Clay Thurston

At Wilderness Wildlife Week Clay Thurston had a booth near one I was manning. He had a couple of fascinat-ing composite images of multiple animal eyes. Visitors enjoyed the challenge of guessing what species each of the eyes belonged to. He and I thought you, the animal loving reader, might like the same challenge.

Each issue he will provide a close-up image of a bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian, or insect eye. That narrows it down for you because it excludes the Black-Eyed Susan. Your job is to guess the animal. You can send your answer to us at [email protected]

In a few weeks we will put the answer on blog at www.smjop.com along with some of the first people to cor-rectly identify the animal. These people will win the great satisfaction of knowing they got it right. We will also include the answer to this one along with the challenge in the next issue.


mailto:eye-d%40smjop.com?subject=Eye%20D%20guess

mailto:eye-d%40smjop.com?subject=

mailto:http://www.smjop.com/?subject=

A t the risk of great personal harm to myself, we will be

discussing where to find many Spring blooming wildflowers in and around the Smoky Mountains. How could this possibly be harm-ful to me? There are those who, for good reason, keep all wildflower sightings quite private due to the risk of wildflower poaching. We will be discussing wildflower locations

in general and will not be divulging any specific location of endangered plants.

There are many books, articles and websites that provide varying degrees of specificity as to the loca-tions of wildflowers in the Smokies. A good wildflower identification book is very helpful in helping pin-point bloom times and general loca-tions. A favorite Facebook site of

mine is “What’s Blooming in Ten-nessee”. Trails such as Porters Creek, Cove Hardwoods and White Oak Sinks are legendary wildflower locations. We will be concentrating on lesser known and much easier to reach locations.Wildflowers of varying types are located through the Appalachian Mountains. Due to elevation changes, soil types and weather, the Smokies are a

When And WhereSpring Wildflower Locations

by Roger Trentham

Vasey’s Trillium - f/16 , 1/5 sec , 100 ISO


https://www.facebook.com/groups/941376545896813/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/941376545896813/

wildflower photographers paradise. Beginning in early March, and some years earlier due to unseasonably warm weather, macro and land-scape photographers begin their annual search for the earliest of wildflowers such as spring beauties, bloodroot, hepatica and trout lilies. These are the first stages of what become an avalanche of wildflower blooms in April and May. Every year these macro and landscape photographers extend their quest to add images of wildflowers that are more elusive such as yellow or pink lady slippers, showy orchis and the more than thirty other orchids that bloom in the Smokies. Most of these are closely held secrets as these are some of the more sought

after plants by poachers.

Thankfully, nei-ther hiking nor extensive searching are necessary for the newer or more casual macro pho-tographers that seek an introduction to wildflower photogra-phy in the Smokies. White fringed pha-cilia, trilliums, phlox and other beautiful wildflowers read-ily bloom along the road just inside the Park entrance from Gatlinburg. Yellow and other varieties of trillium bloom along the Gatlinburg Trail that extends from the city limits to Park Headquar-ters. Many of the hollows along the Gatlinburg bypass contain various wildflowers and near

the Northern entrance along the rocky bank are beautiful displays of native bleeding hearts.An easy walk-ing trail that is awash in various wildflowers is the Cosby Nature Trail adjacent to the Cosby Campground. There is a large patch of trout lilies immedi-ately behind the amphitheater.

Continuing along the trail reveals various types and colors of trillium, jack-in-the-pulpit, phlox, squir-rel corn, dutchman’s britches and many others. This trail makes an easy loop and more wildflowers can be found along the adjacent Lower Mount Cammerer Trail. Showy orchis can be readily found along the first one hundred yards of the Low Gap Trail along the gravel road portion of the trail leading out of the Cosby Campground. You will find far fewer people on these trails than the more publicized trails such as the Cove Hardwoods and Porter’s Creek Trails.Porters Creek, in the Greenbrier section of the Park, is a legendary wildflower trail and many people make annual pilgrim-ages during April and May. If you choose to go there, and you should, plan on arriving early or you will not find a parking space. Porter’s Creek’s twin trail in Greenbrier is the Ramsey Cascades Trail (closed at this writing for bridge repair). While not known as a wildflower trail as is Porter’s Creek, the Ramsey Cascades Trail has some of the most beautiful areas of dwarf

Dwarf Crested Iris - f/18, 1/4 sec , 100 ISO

Dwarf Crested Iris - f/13 , 1/60 sec, 100 ISO


Painted Trillium - f/13, 1/15 sec, 100 ISO

Phlox - f/18, 1/4 sec, 100 ISO


Jack-in-the-Pulpit - f/11, 1/60 sec, 100 ISO Pink Lady Slipper - f /18, 1/125 sec, 100 ISO

White Fringed Phacelia - f/18, 1/4 sec, 100 ISO


crested iris in the Park. If the trail is still closed when you arrive, there is a nice display of dwarf crested iris on the small bank just before you cross the first bridge out of the parking lot and there will be trilli-um all around the parking lot. One of the best places to photograph macro images of blood root is all around the parking lot of the Porter’s Creek Trail but you need to go early as they don’t last long.

Outside the Park don’t forget the Cherokee Na-tional Forest. Depending on the elevation, many wildflower blooms that have come and gone at lower elevations may bloom more than a month later at higher elevations. One such place is along the road to Max Patch, near the Tennessee/North Carolina border just off I-40. Some of the most impressive displays of trillium can be found here in mid-May about two miles before

reaching the Max Patch parking lot.In the Smokies differing types

of wildflowers bloom from March through November, though most people consider the Spring bloom to be the best. Revisiting favorite Spring bloom locations later can bring welcome surprises. Along the Cosby Nature Trail after the

early trillium bloom is on it’s way out or completely gone you can find beautiful late blooming pink and purple trillium. Along most moun-tain streams in mid-June rosebay rhododendron make their annual bloom. In July and August you can find red bee balm, orange jewelweed, pale jewelweed, cardinal flower and golden glow. Each can make wonderful accents to mossy stream shots so don’t stop your wildflower photography too early. An added bonus to cardinal flower, bee balm and jewelweed in Summer are but-terflies and hummingbirds who constantly feed on these flowers for their nectar.

No matter your time constraints or physical abilities, photographing wildflowers in the Smokies is avail-able to everyone and little to no hiking is required. By the time this article is presented the wildflower bloom should be in full swing so get out now and begin filling your cameras with wonderful images of all that nature has to off

Sweet White Trillium - f/13, 1/15, 100 ISO

Hybrid Bent Trillium - f/16, 1/15 sec, 100 ISO


Kevin Adams


N ight photography has become extremely popular in the past

few years. The night sky and all that it offers is a particularly appealing subject. The Milky Way, planets, meteors, the Moon, and a host of other night-sky objects provide alluring subjects, whether as the primary subject or as an enhancing element in a landscape scene. The national parks, such as Great Smoky Mountains National Park, provide excellent locations to shoot these subjects, as they are often in dark locations free from heavy light pol-lution.

Among my favorite night-sky subjects are a couple of things that don’t get much attention. In fact, most people haven’t even heard of an Iridium flare. And while every-one knows about the International Space Station, few people know that

you can see it regularly with your naked eye and photograph it very easily.

An Iridium flare is a particularly interesting phenomenon that oc-curs when sunlight reflects off the mirrors of an Iridium satellite. Yes, you read that correctly. Sunlight reflects off the mirror on a satel-lite that is hundreds of miles above the surface of the Earth and cre-ates a flash of light that looks like a meteor. This is particularly amazing considering that the mirrors mea-sure only about 3 feet by 6 feet.

The streak of light you see from the International Space Station is also caused by sunlight reflecting from its solar panels. But the ISS doesn’t look like a meteor. It creates a long, even streak of light, like an airplane light that doesn’t flash.

Finding Satellites

What I think is even more amaz-ing than the fact that we see these satellites with our naked eye is that we can know in advance precisely when and where these events will occur. Some really smart people have done the math so you can liter-ally “catch a falling star.”

You can obtain precise info from a number of websites and apps. I use the Heavens Above site www.heavens-above.com. For a night owl like me, the Heavens Above site is just about the coolest thing on the Internet. The website provides viewing info for several satellites, but you’ll probably only be inter-ested in the ISS and Iridium flares as the others are much fainter and don’t make great photo subjects for typical cameras and techniques. The website will tell you the azimuth, altitude, and the time to the second when the phenomenon will occur.

Another cool feature of the Heav-ens Above site is that you can regis-ter free, and once registered, enter any number of locations that will remain in the database. I’ve entered all the main locations I travel to and before each trip I check the site to see if anything will be visible. The predictions are fairly accurate up to about two weeks in advance, so you don’t have to check it every day.

Photographing Iridium Flares and the International Space Station

by Kevin Adams

Previous Page

An Iridium flare shines above Bubbling Spring Branch Cascades in Pisgah National Forest, NC.

Nikon D800, Nikon 14-24mm lens at 24mm. This is a stack of 7 exposures. I shot 3 exposures for the light painting on the waterfall at ISO 200. For the

painting I used a flashlight with light blue gel filter. I also shot 2 exposures for the light painting on the trees at ISO 400 and using a green gel filter. For the

flare, I shot 2 exposures at 30 seconds, ISO 3200, f/3.5. I stacked them all using the techniques described in the text. All exposures made while the camera

remained in the same position on the tripod.


http://www.heavens-above.com

http://www.heavens-above.com

best photos likely will include part of the landscape or some other foreground object such as trees, lighthouses, buildings, etc. This is especially true for the ISS, which won’t look good at all as an isolated shot. For both the ISS and Iridium flares, you’ll need to set up the com-position ahead of time and be ready to fire the shutter at the instant it appears, if not sooner. Beyond that, the approach is a bit different for each one.

Iridium Flares

An Iridium flare looks very similar to a meteor at first glance, but there are some differences. A flare typically travels over a longer portion of the sky. It starts out very faint, grows bright in the center,

and then fades away. It also hap-pens over a much longer period of time, sometimes 30 seconds or more. The Heavens Above website will tell you precisely when the flare starts, but it won’t tell you how much of the sky it will cover. To be safe, compose as if it were the lon-gest meteor you’ve ever seen.

You do not set the exposure for the Iridium flare. You set it for the overall scene and then let the flare record as it will. So, you’ll want to use as wide an aperture and as high an ISO as possible without overex-posing the scene so the flare shows as brightly as possible. Shutter speed has no effect on how bright the flare is, but it does affect how the stars look. If you want the stars to appear as pinpoints (not star trails), you’ll have to shoot a fairly short shutter speed. With a wide-angle lens, this will be 30 seconds or less. Any longer, or if you use a narrower focal length, the stars will record as streaks. Set the aperture to f/2.8 or f/4 and the ISO to at least 1600. If your camera isn’t too noisy, crank the ISO up to 3200 or even higher. If there is much light pollution from city lights, you’ll have to adjust your settings to com-pensate or else the image will blow out. And sometimes the flare will occur in a twilight sky, which will require different settings. Make a test exposure and adjust as needed.

When the flare starts, it’s usually too faint to see but bright enough to record on your sensor. For that reason, I don’t recommend waiting until you see the flare to fire the shutter. I set the camera to shoot continuous exposures and lock the shutter down about three minutes before the stated time. This way I’m sure to capture the entire flare. Use your cell phone’s clock, not a watch, so you’ll be sure you have the cor-

You’ll want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with the web-site. One thing in particular you’ll want to watch for is the brightness level, which varies for each event based on how close the object is to Earth and the angle of view. Bright-ness is listed by the apparent mag-nitude scale, with negative numbers being the brightest. For the ISS, I look for a brightness of -2.5 or greater. An occurrence measuring

-3.0 is very bright. For Iridium flares, I look for at least -7.0. Anything over -8.0 is terrific.

Photographing Satellites

Iridium flares and the ISS are bright enough that they can be photographed easily with regular camera gear. For either subject, the

The International Space Station streaks across the sky from the summit of Mount LeConte in the Smokies.

Nikon D700, Nikon 16mm fisheye lens. This is a stack of 7 exposures at 20 seconds, ISO 1600, f/3.2. All exposures made while the camera remained in the

same position on the tripod.


and then stack that selection with the other one.

My selection method is to take a black brush and brush out every-thing on the image except for the flare. When working close to the flare, I’ll magnify the image to 300% or higher to make sure I get it clean. I’ve tried making the selection based on color, but it doesn’t work well with the very faint parts of the flare. I’m not a Photoshop expert and there may be a much better way of doing this. The next step is to stack all of the images as layers and change the Blend Mode to Lighten. Since you’ve blackened out all the stars from all images but one, they won’t show up in the final image. Only the lightest parts of each shot will be revealed.

International Space Station

The big difference between ISS shots and Iridium flares is the area of sky the ISS covers. Some vis-ible flyovers can stretch all the way across the sky, which means you won’t be able to record all of it in a single view unless you use a fish-eye lens. You could shoot multiple frames, changing the composition, and combine them as a panorama, but boy, that would entail a lot of Photoshop work.

I use a single composition to capture whatever amount of the streak occurs within the angle of view. Sometimes I’ll use a fisheye lens, but usually it’s the 14-24mm lens set at 14mm. The Heavens Above site tells you where and when visibility starts and ends, so you can plot the entire course of the ISS across the sky. This is a necessity for getting the composition set before the event happens.

It can take up to three or four minutes for the ISS to cross the sky, so you won’t be shooting it in a single exposure unless you like your stars streaked as well. So I use the same technique as for Iridium flares, by shooting multiple short expo-sures. They are processed the same way, except that I don’t do the black brush technique on every frame. Instead, I’ll stack them first, change the Blend Mode to Lighten so they all show up, then flatten the file and use the black brush. This way, I only have to black out one frame.

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rect time.Chances are that you’ll end up

with the flare occurring over two or possibly even three frames. Don’t fret, you can work with that if you use Photoshop. It’s unlikely that you’d capture all of the flare on a single frame no matter what you do, so you just have to deal with multiples. The standard method of combining multiple exposures such as this (stacking as layers in Photo-shop and changing the Blend Mode to Lighten) won’t work because you would end up with multiple sets of stars in the sky. So, you have to select only the flare from all but one frame. Obviously, you’ll want to choose the frame that has the biggest portion of the flare as your base. On any additional frames, you’ll need to select just the flare

The International Space Station flies over Rainbow Falls and the full Moon in Pisgah National Forest, NC

Nikon D700, Nikon 14-24mm lens at 14mm. This is a composite of 20 sepa-rate exposures. I bracketed 5 exposures for the landscape and blended them

using HDR software. The ISS is a stack of 15 separate exposures. All exposures made while the camera remained in the same position on the tripod.


you are kidding. But imagine their face when you point up at the sky at the instant the Iridium flare is supposed to occur and there is the

“falling star” the fairy told you about. Can’t top that!

And I think it’s hard to top a well-executed photo of the fairy’s falling star!

how. Keep checking the Heavens Above website for bright Iridium flares. Find one that is going to occur at a location and time where you’ll be with the child. Then, a short time before it occurs, tell you child that you were out in the garden the day before and a fairy appeared and said that if you would look up in the sky at this particu-lar time and place, you would see a falling star. Your child will say

An Iridium flare shines above the western North Carolina mountains.

Nikon D700, Nikon 14-24mm lens at 14mm. This is a stack of 3 exposures at 25 seconds, ISO 1600, f/4. All exposures made while the camera remained in the same position on the tripod.


T here are some fancy diction-ary definitions of perspective

but I am going to discuss it as the relationship between objects in our images. Photographs are a flat, 2-dimensional representation of a 3-dimensional world. Perspective

gives the brain of the viewer clues on how to translate the 2-dimen-sional objects in the image back into 3-dimensions based on size, con-trast, overlap, position, saturation and vanishing points. Understand-ing and using perspective is critical

to good composition. We will take a deeper look at this concept in a series of articles.

First let’s address something I see repeated often in articles. People often say that perspective can be changed by the use of a wide angle

Perspective in PhotographyPart 1by Tyson Smith

I shot these four images on a tripod without moving the camera at 18, 55, 135 and 300mm focal lengths. Notice that the perspective does not change. Due to the angle of view, more stuff is included in the wide angle images but the relative size and position of the objects in the 300mm image are exactly the same as in the other three images. This is best seen by looking at the post and its relationship to the barn door opening.

18 mm 55 mm

135 mm 300 mm


I kept the tripod in the same spot and changed the focal length of the lens in the first group of images, the relationship of the size of the post and the barn opening remained consistent. This is best shown in the second group of images which is a crop of the first group so all show about the same image as the 300mm image. The size and posi-tion relationships between objects in the image do not change. Look particularly at the size relationship between the post cap and the barn opening. This shows that changing the lens does not change the per-spective if the camera stays in the same place.

Next I used different focal lengths but tried to keep the post about the same size in the image. I

didn’t do a great job of moving straight back to keep all the posi-tions relatively consistent but the images clearly make the point. With the wide angle lens at 28mm the post is wider than the barn door. As I move the camera back further from the post and use a longer focal length to keep the post the same size in the image, the relative size of the background changes. The fur-ther back I go, the larger the barn door looks relative to the post. This shows that changing the position of the camera changes the perspective.

So it is not changing lens focal length that changes perspective; it is moving the camera. Getting closer to the subject makes it practi-cal to use a wide angle lens and take advantage of its wide angle of view.

lens to show more depth (depth in the image not depth of field) or a telephoto lens to compress depth. This is not exactly true. If we take two images from the same spot without moving the camera, one taken with a wide angle lens will show more of the scene than one taken with a telephoto lens because the wide angle lens has a wider angle of view. If you crop the wide angle image to show the same scene as the telephoto. The images will be identical. The perspective or rela-tionship of the objects in the image will not change. A change in per-spective is accomplished by moving the camera not by just changing the lens focal length.

I shot some quick examples of this in my backyard. Notice when

To show that the perspective does not change when the focal length changes but the camera does not change positions I cropped the 18, 55 and 135mm images from the previous page to approximately match the 300mm image. It is clear that the relative size of the post to the barn door and fence does not change if the camera does not move.

18 mm 55 mm

18mm

135 mm 300 mm


from the foreground to the back-ground or into the image toward the horizon) will look like they converge at the horizon. For ex-ample, a path or road will look wider in the foreground and will narrow as it goes back into the scene. Think about a shot of a railroad track.

Rectilinear perspective consid-ers more specifically the lines in the image that are vertical or horizon-tal. The lines that are perpendicular to our lens usually need to look straight. Most lenses are manufac-tured to keep them straight. Some specialty lenses like a fisheye are curvilinear and do not correct the straight lines around the edges.

Lines in the middle of a fisheye image will be straight but those around the edges will be curved. This can be useful if that is what the photographer wants.

Size perspective refers to the concept that things look smaller as they get further away from us. Take a look at the image of the fence. The fence posts that are further away from us look smaller than those that are close to us in the fore-ground. If we see similar objects in different parts of the image that are the same size, we will assume they are about the same distance away from the camera. This can help give scale to objects in the image if there

Moving back away from the scene lets us use a telephoto lens and take advantage of its narrow angle of view. Positioning the camera helps the photographer create the image that is envisioned.

With this background there are several ways to look at perspective that help our brains interpret imag-es based on the position of objects in the frame. Let’s take a quick look at them.

Linear perspective deals with the lines in an image. Lines that are perpendicular to the lens (like those running up and down or vertical) will look straight. Lines that are parallel to the lens (usually running

Here I used the same focal lengths as I used in the first set of images but I moved the tripod back to keep the post approximat-ly the same size in each image. I didn’t do a great job of moving straight back so the post moves a little relative to the position of the barn door due to where I set the tripod, but it is clear that the relative size of the post and barn door change in each im-age. At 18mm the post is wider than the barn door but, at 300mm the door is wider than the post. The perspective changed because I moved the camera between shots.

18 mm 55 mm

135 mm 300 mm


Linear Perspective: the red lines show how the road appears to narrow as it travels toward the vanishing point at the horizon in the background even though we know the edges of the road are parallel and stay the same distance apart.

Rectilinear perspective: Most of our lens are manufac-tured to try to keep verticla and horizona straights lines straight. They generally do a good job but may still show some distortion near the edges. This wide angle shoot of deck posts keeps most straight.

Rectilinear perspective: A few types of specality lenses like a fisheye has more of a curvilinear view and do not try to keep all the verticlal and horizonal lighns straight to gain a very wide angle of view. It is supprising how well Lightroom or Camera Raw lens correction checkbox can straighten these out.

Size perspective: Objects look smaller when they are further away from us. Here all the fence posts are actu-ally the same height. All four red lines are the height of the first fence post. The posts appear to get shorter as they move away from us toward the vanishing point. At least for me that makes the red line in the back look much longer than the red line at the first post even though they are the same length resulting in an optical illusion.


Height perspective: All of the fence posts are the same height and the ground is level. The base of the fence posts appear to move higher in the image as the lines of the fence head toward the vancishing point at the horizon. This is an example of height perspective.

Overlap perspective: When two opjects are about the same distance away, we assume that if one of them overlaps and hids part of the other, it is closer. Here the top of the fence overlaps the sign and hides part of it so our brains will assume that the fence post is closer.

Atmospheric perspective: As light passes through the air containing dust, fog, haze and water droplets it is scat-tered. Distant objects appear to have less contrast and sharpness so the distant mountains appear brighter than the closser layers.

Volume perspective: Shadows are just as important to the image as the well lit objects. If this lichen was lit with flat, even light it would not show the texture and geo-metric shapes nearly as well. It is the shadow that gives it a 3-dimensions structure to our eyes.


results in a loss of contrast, color, saturation, and sharpness. The fur-ther away an object is, the more at-mosphere the light passes through before it reaches our camera, the more the effect is obvious. This can result in the classic, layered moun-tain landscapes the Smokies are famous for. In general, objects that are further away will be less sharp, less saturated, show less contrast resulting in fewer shadows, and be brighter than closer objects.

Volume perspective is produced by shadow. The 3-dimensional shape of a structure is revealed as much by the shadow pattern it produces as by the lit areas. The shadows give us clues to size, shape and texture.

Forced perspective is an effect to take advantage of all of the above to make a trick picture. These are the ones where someone is close to the camera and it looks like they are pinching the moon between his/her fingers or has a hand on top of the Eiffel Tower. The effect could be

used for something other than get-ting into a list of 20 strange photos on the internet.

Arranging the objects in the image is the basis of composition. All of these aspects of perspective help our brain interpret the image so that the composition transmits the photographer’s message to the viewer. It is up to the photographer to arrange the objects so that the viewer receives the message the photographer wants to send. The next part of this article will look at ways to use perspective to get the desired result.

is something in the image that we know the size of, like a person.

Height perspective is also dem-onstrated by the image of the fence. As objects move away into the im-age toward the horizon they tend to be higher in the image. The bases of the fence posts move gradually higher in the example image as they approach the horizon even though the land the fence posts were on is level.

Overlap perspective refers to our assumption that when two objects are close together and one overlaps the other, hiding part of its structure, we assume the one over-lapping the other is closer. Look at the sign along the fence row. The fence blocks part of the sign so we naturally assume the fence is closer to us than the sign is.

Atmospheric perspective is a big one here in the Smokies. Our skies are often full of water droplets, dust, fog, and haze. As the light passes through the air these com-ponents can scatter the light. This

How many types of perspective can you pick out in this morning shot from Spark’s Lane in Cades Cove?


Cameras have become ubiquitous. Even if we don’t have a high end DSLR we probably carry around a phone that can make wonderful images. It’s not just adults. I saw a 2015 survey quoted on the internet from Child Guide that says that the average American child gets their first cell phone when they’re 6 years old. That means our children and grandchildren are walking around with cameras. As we learn more about photog-raphy, why not help these young people learn more about it too.

Anne-Laure Jacquart has written a book, Photo Adventures For Kids, that does just that. The book is designed to be given to the child for them to work through on their own. The premise is that the child needs to help solve the mystery of photography. He/she works through challenges and assignments, collect-ing evidence to solve the mystery.

This book does not cover the technical aspects of the camera. Setting f/stops and shutter speeds may be a bit much for even a precocious 8 or 9 year old. Rather the book concentrates on the design of the im-age. It helps the young photographer understand how to isolate a subject and remove distracting elements from the image.

Then it delves into how cropping might give unusual, but successful, interpretations of the subject. This is followed by an introduction to some of the ele-ments of graphic design. All of these topics are present-ed in a fun but systematic way. The material it covers is good for all of us.

The only reason I give this book 4 starts rather than 5 is that I put several of the passages into a gram-mar checker and the reading level was 8th grade to 11th grade. The editors recommend the book for 8-12 year old. I haven’t had young children for a long time, but I don’t think any of mine would have worked through this on their own at 8. That’s not a big problem. Work through the topic with your young photographer. That way you will be spending time with them doing some-thing they enjoy, and I bet you learn something along the way as well

Book Reviews

by Tyson Smith

Photo Adventures for Kids: Solving the Mysteries of Taking

Great Pictures

by Anne-Laure Jacquart

Pet Photography: The Secrets to Creating Authentic Pet Portraits

by Norah Levine

Some of us may have aspirations of starting a busi-ness doing pet photography, but many more of us like to take pictures of our animals. Norah Levine has much to offer to both groups in her book Pet Photog-raphy, The Secrets to Creating Authentic Pet Portraits. I have been in both groups at one time or another so have read several pet photography books. I find this book to be the most clearly written and comprehensive one I have read for its topic.

Not to mislead anyone, this is not an introduc-tory photography book or an introduction to the busi-ness of photography. This is a book about photograph-ing the animals. I’ve found that many specialty books spend all their time covering the basics of photography and don’t leave much room in their pages for the spe-cialty. This book does not fall into that trap. It tells you that you will use you camera but doesn’t tell how to use it. I talks about natural light and flash/studio strobe lighting but also doesn’t tell you how to do it. That’s


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fine with me. There are many other books that cover those topics.

Rather, Levine tells us how to work with the animals. She starts with the basic question of why we want to make pictures of pets. Then she takes us through the equipment we will need, giving the pros and cons of different choices. Graphic design and com-position are also generally covered. These are the topic that a photographer should already generally under-stand before approaching a specialty.

The meat of the book is how to do a pet shoot. She covers how to prepare to maximize results for the time spent with the subject. She has individual chap-ters for dogs, cats, horses, and other animals that cover behavior, locations, owners, safety, lighting, challenges, and posing. She finishes with information about how to use photography to help animal shelters and how to grow from personal projects.

Most readers will benefit from the authors insights into pet photography. Making a portrait of a cat is not the same as photographing a person. The use of the camera and lighting may be similar, but many of the challenges are different. Readers will have a better understanding about how to approach a dog, cat, or horse subject after reading this book.

Book Reviewsby Tyson Smith

Cades Cove: The Life and Death of a Southern Appalachian Community

1818-1937

by Durwood Dunn

Wildflowers and Plant Communi-ties of the Southern Appalachian

Mountains and Piedmont: A Natu-ralist’s Guide to the Carolinas, Vir-

ginia, Tennessee, and Georgiaby Timothy Spira

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

by Bill Bryson

Our Southern Highlanders: A Narrative of Adventure in the

Southern Appalachians and a Study of Life Among the Mountaineers

by Horace Kephart

Mountain Nature: A Seasonal Natural History of the Southern

Appalachians

by Jennifer Frick-Ruppert

North Carolina Waterfalls

by Kevin Adams


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Author Biographies

Kevin Adams, naturalist, writer, teacher, and photographer, has had a lifelong love affair with nature and the outdoors, and he enjoys sharing his passion with others. A photographer for nearly 30 years, Kevin is the author of nine books, including the bestselling North Carolina Waterfalls, which he has totally revised and published in May of this year. In addition to photography, he enjoys hiking, kayaking, and gazing at the night sky. Often called the “MacGyver of Photog-raphy,” he has designed several unique products for night photographers. He lives in the mountains of North Carolina with his lovely wife, Patricia, their mischievous cats, Lucy and Titan, five chickens named after women on Star Trek, and a groundhog that lives under the house and eats Patricia’s flowers. www.kadamsphoto.com facebook.com/kadamsphoto.com

Kefyn Catley is Professor of Biology at Western Carolina University where he teaches and conducts research in or-ganismal evolutionary biology and science education. He holds a PhD in arthropod systematics from Cornell and was a research scientist at the American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY. Traveling extensively he has studied spiders on four continents and held faculty positions at Rutgers and Vanderbilt universities. A naturalist, passion-ate photographer, and lifelong observer of the tiny creatures “that run the world” Kefyn gives talks and workshops at photographic clubs where he encourages photographers to become citizen scientists by documenting and sharing their local arthropod diversity online. His photographs have been exhibited in galleries, appeared in press, and online. He lives in Sylva, NC on the edge of the GSMNP. www.hiddennatureimages.com

Tom and Pat Cory have over 30 years’ experience teaching nature photography seminars and workshops. They cur-rently present programs and workshops for camera clubs and other organizations as well as giving individual photog-raphy lessons. Workshops and quarterly newsletters are posted to their website. Send your email address if you would like to be notified when workshops and newsletters have been added.Tomandpatcory.comhttps://www.facebook.com/tomandpatcory

Bill Lea is known for capturing intimate images of wildlife, scenery, wildflowers, and a variety of other natural sub-jects in “just the right light.” He may best be known for his artistic documentation of deer and bear behavior, the various moods of the Great Smoky Mountains, the Florida Everglades and southern ecosystems. Photographing in the Smokies since 1975 has afforded him limitless opportunities to observe and record the flora, fauna, and scenery of the region. Bill’s craft reflects his deep appreciation for nature and he communicates his enthusiasm and expertise as a natural history photographer and writer to others through his books, workshops, feature articles and civic presenta-tions. When asked what he would most like to achieve through his photography, Bill replies, “I hope my images will promote a better understanding and appreciation for wildlife, the natural world, and most of all, our Creator.”www.BillLea.comwww.Facebook.com/BillLeaPhotography


http://www.kadamsphoto.com

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Author Biographies

Tyson Smith retired from a career in healthcare in 2013 and moved to Townsend, TN to pursue his interests in pho-tography and the natural history of the Appalachian Mountains. He is lucky to now live where his heart has always been in East Tennessee with his supportive and tolerant wife. He concentrates on artistic nature photography, pet photography and assists his wife with wedding and portrait photography.www.wildandwonderfulphotography.comwww.Facebook.com/WildandWonderfupPhotography.comwww.smokymountainsop.com

Roger Trentham is an eighth generation native of the Smoky Mountains who expresses his love of the mountains and their inhabitants through photography. He has spent his life exploring and photographing nature in all its moods and seasons. Roger enjoys sharing his love of photography through club participation, photography contests and espe-cially teaching. He has been involved in teaching workshops for more than thirty years.www.rtnaturephoto.comwww.Facebook.com/rtnaturephotowww.smokymountainsop.com

Jerry Whaley is an East TN writer & photographer whose images are marketed worldwide by several stock photo agencies. His work has appeared in Sierra Club Calendars, National Geographic Traveler, Blue Ridge Country, Outdoor Photographer, Peterson’s Photographic, Reiman’s Country, Backpacker, & many other books, magazines, postcards, calendars, prints and trade publications. His images can be found locally on postcards & in books published by the Great Smoky Mountains Association.http://jerrywhaley.photoshelter.com/ www.smokymountainsop.com


http://wildandwonderfulphotography.com/

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Documents

Smoky Mountain Jan/Feb/March 2017 Journal … · 3 Smoky Mountain Journal of Photography FEATURES Image Capture 6 An Introduction to the Art and Science of Photographing Insects and