About the size of a small fist. Yeah, that’s not really a great way to describe the highly endangered Piping Plover, a fist. And it’s very unlikely you can get a plover to stand next to a fist on the sand. So then, when it comes to visual storytelling, especially when your audience doesn’t know birds, how do you say size? The bottom image is one of my preferred methods. While I don’t like all the empty sand, placing the plover centered and alone, small in the frame, it opens the door to wonder why such a cute, little bird is that way. If filling the frame with the small critter, some type of universal recognizable object for scale is another method. In this case, the bubbles from the surf. Solid critter photography is a challenge, and adding scale to the storytelling makes it even more so. But your story is stronger when the viewer doesn’t wonder, ” How big?”

The sun hadn’t broken the horizon at Stono Cnty Park when the chorus broke out across the marsh. The inky shadows in the tall grasses’ movement could be seen, chicken-sized shapes slowly moving about. The tide was rising, and the shy Clapper Rails were being forced from their seclusion. The sun pops out and in bands of light, the clapper is exposed. The range of light is over seven stops, which means the shadows will go black, with no detail. That’s contrasty light, it’s also their world, their story. Photographically, what do you do? Personally, I want those shadows to go black as that is their world. If they step into a ray of light, like the top photo, it says it all. The bottom, it tells a story as well but a different one. As visual storytellers, it’s upon us to make the call. Contrasty or storytelling?

A couple of lifetimes ago, my mentor told me I needed to see the mass shorebird migration in fall at Folly Beach. I didn’t have the means back then to make that trip, so I’m been doing it now. Ted’s photo showed a beach covered with little peeps, a birders’ paradise! This pass week I struggled to find just one bird each session to photograph. I was lucky, I did find one and, even more luckily, found a cooperative one like this Sanderling last evening. There, on the end of Sullivan’s Island, Fort Sumter off in the distance, this lone Sanderling spent time on a small stretch of beach foraging. Witness to its passing, there was NO WAY I was going to take a photo that said, “it was here,” but rather, it has to celebrate it was here! How to visually say that is the question? Lying on the sand, the rolling surf was placed in the background, waiting for the splash to create some sparkle. The Sanderling needed a portrait that would make folks stop, if just for a moment, and take note that it’s a survivor and carrying on the very long tradition of migration. The entire scenario is very depressing, the loss of so many of its cousins over the decades, had to pull out all the tricks so in one click, leave it with a positive spin.

Alaska is a glorious place to explore with a camera, there are stories at every step! One of the aspects of shooting there that has to be mastered is, shooting in the rain. Life doesn’t stop for an act of nature that happens all the time. This Kodiak Brown Bear we named Goldie, she had one COY (Cub of the Year), which was on the smaller side of life. She took great care of that cub, which included providing food as well as teaching it the story of life.

Bringing back their story required working in the downpours. It’s actually pretty darn easy when you’re prepared for it. Working in flyfishing boots and waders, extra long Carhart rainshell and with dry white towel, one. can click and click away. I know that if I can take the rain, the camera can. Simply blotting the gear dry every so often with the white towel, shooting can continue on without missing a click. If you want the photo, ya gotta adapt becuase, life goes on.

They were new to us, and we to them. Bears tend to do one of two things, in my experience, when they see humans, walk in the opposite direction or ignore you. In this case, we were in a boat, and while the engines had been cut and we were drifting with the tide, this mother and cub didn’t know what to make of us. While mom was checking us out, the cub, which had been playing in the kelp, why we stopped to watch, walked and hid behind mom, just for a moment or two. Then its curiosity got the better of it. A small COY, it had grown quite a bit and had its winter coat coming in. In a couple of years, it will be as big as its mom and just as smart, and just as spectacular. It will go through lots of change in a short time.

Say hello to Scratch! One of the five fawns born on the property this spring, if you look at it left hind leg, you see a kinda nasty gash in its leg. It’s how I recognize Scratch. Now you might think the fading spots on its flank are the sign I’m talking about, and while that’s a good sign that fall is here, it’s not the sign I was thinking about. Rather, the fact that Scratch and the other four fawns no longer care about me or, more importantly, Maggie when we’re out and about. Scratch actually walks up to within six or seven feet of me, like it did this evening. That tells me it’s Sept, it’s another sign.