No Future in Wildlife Photography

I’ve got no future as a wildlife photographer. And I’m ok with that. I don't have the lenses, patience or the eye to spot the animals.

Don’t get me wrong, I like nature. I like visiting it, breathing in the clean air and admiring the beauty around me. When I travel I see the sights, go zip-lining, hiking, kayaking and other outdoor activities. I expected to do a lot of that in Costa Rica and was looking forward to it.

I was told Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio was one of the best wildlife parks in Costa Rica. Lucky for me, it is just an hour drive south of Playa Herradura. So I hired a taxi driver for the day, packed my camera equipment and headed out to the park in the early morning with thoughts of photographing green tree frogs, toucans, macaws and monkeys.

See how these guys blend? No wonder I couldn't see them.

As we drove south, George (pronounced Hor-hey in these parts), my driver, pointed out things of interest including fields and fields of newly planted rice, just in time for the rainy season. Looking out at the country-side passing by I realized this country is so insanely green you can almost get eye fatigue looking at it. Every hue was represented from and almost fluorescent green to a deep forest green.

The male iguana, in the foreground, is smaller and black.

When we arrived at the park the density of tourists when up exponentially. Playa Herradura was not very touristy at all so it was something that caught my attention. George decided to go with me so we started walking up the main trail thick with people.

There were two things I figured out right away. The first one was, no brightly colored birds. Not one. In fact, nothing was brightly colored unless you count the frogs that were the same bright green as the plants. It makes sense, most of these small animals depend on their ability to blend in for survival. So the ones who are still alive are exceptionally good at staying hidden.

The slow climb of a three-toed sloth.

The second was the realization of why wildlife photographers talk about 400 and 500mm lenses. I brought my 80-200mm Zeiss lens with the adapter for my Canon. Even at 200mm most of the things I saw in trees were too high up to even come close to filling the frame. The lens is full manual and, without a proper focusing screen, next to impossible to get in focus. I jacked up the ISO and set the f-stop to 16 to increase my chances of getting something in focus.

The raccoon-like mapache.

On the main path I saw a frog, ‘zebra’ grasshoppers and a three-toed sloth climbing very high in a tree. I wanted to see more and thought if we found a less traveled trail more animals would be visible. We found a small trail and followed it up the mountain. Immediately, there was another sloth lower on a tree. I came across several different types of lizards along the trail and a cross-trail cut by carpenter ants, which was surprisingly wide and completely cleared.

Carpenter ants on the march.

Further up we heard the call of a howler monkey. It sounded more like a coughing bark than a howl but it was pretty loud. We tried to catch sight of it through the dense foliage and canopy but could see it. We went further up the trail and saw it through a small hole in the canopy. I tried to get a good shot of it but would have had better luck with a 500mm lens.

This was shot with a 200mm lens, you can see how the howler monkey looked like a black spot.

We found another trail and followed in down to the first of three white-sand beaches the park is famous for. After hanging out in the shade for a little while enjoying the cool breeze, I decided to check out the water. It was bathwater warm.

One of the three beautiful beaches at the park.

On the way out of the park I spotted some raccoon-looking animals and a few iguanas. A couple of the iguanas were pretty big. I was told they were the females. So, no bright birds but plenty of lizards.

The restaurant was built around this C-130. The bar is inside the plane.

On the way back we stopped at a restaurant that was made from an old military C-130 airplane. George said it was too expensive and took me to a place where the locals go for grilled chicken, rice and beans. Just my style.

El Niño: Mi Nuevo Amigo

Meet Johan. He’s my new best friend.

I had a little bit of a tough weekend. I know, I’m in Costa Rica, how bad could it be. But, believe it or not, being here made it worse in a few different ways. I was unmotivated and ended up spending most of the weekend holed up in the condo.

There was a nice break on Saturday night. I went to a local bar by the beach for a few beers and met a couple of ex-pats including the bartender Tim who is one year into a two year stint with his girlfriend who is here for a teaching job. When I came back to the condo, I was invited to the rooftop deck for a barbeque. The deck is part of the penthouse and the owner is an Argentinean businessman named Jorge. As I said, he’s Argentinean so there was lots of wine and grilled meat. We all communicated as best we could in broken English and even more broken Spanish. It was a nice night.

Johan is shyly trying to get my attention.

I pulled myself out of my funk and finally left the condo to head to the beach for some photos of the area. Then I was planning on heading over to the marina for some photos there as part of my photo assignment I was brought here for.

When I arrived at the beach, the sun was shining down for the perfect lighting situation. I shot pictures of the beach, coastline and people at work and play. I even shot some HD video using a couple different lenses. It was getting hot so I decided to look for a place to sit in the shade and found an empty bench.

I was sitting there enjoying the breeze and watching the sparse activity at the mostly empty beach. A boy showed up with his father and started running around the beach doing various things that little boys find so entertaining. Like throwing rocks and picking up big branches twice as long as them and, of course, climbing trees.

He saw me with my camera and started clowning around on the tree to get my attention. Now sometimes parents get really sketchy about people taking pictures of their kids so I usually don’t do it without permission. But the cute little boy was standing in a small tree peeking at me from behind a big leaf to make sure I was watching him. I had to take the shot. That was all the encouragement he needed and he kept trying to do things to get my attention.

Ah, to be 5 years old and full of wonder.

Finally, he walked up and stood a little behind me and shyly told me his name was Johan and that I should take pictures of him. I told him that if his dad said it was ok, I would take his picture. His dad said as long as I didn’t mind, he was good with it. But Johan didn’t stay interested in getting his picture taken for very long. He was more interested in asking me questions about my camera and then trying out all the buttons first-hand.

Good thing I’m not shooting film. I let Johan look through the viewfinder and push the button and he couldn’t find enough things he wanted to take pictures of. Then he started going through my camera bag and wanted to see what each lens could do. I pulled out my iPhone to take a picture of him with my camera and it was all over. He wanted to look at every picture on my phone (over 500) and every video, twice.

I wonder if this is his 'Blue Steel'.

Johan is 5 years-old and bilingual. Which means sometimes he talks in English and sometimes he talks in Spanish. He proved the perfect person to practice my Spanish with because most questions from a 5 year-old are fairly easy to answer. It is also amazing to me that this boy, who started out so shy was all up in my personal space, not to mention my camera bag. I love that about kids.

I thought the shot in the tree was going to be the best shot of the day. But, at one point, Johan was distracted by looking at my flash, I was able to get my camera back and take this picture.

My favorite shot of the day.

Fortunately, the right lens was on the camera because I was able to get the shot before the moment passed (and they passed quickly). He was sitting right up against me so I had to use the wide-angle lens to get him in the picture.

All-in-all, it was a good day. I got out to the beach, met some cool new people and got some great photos of Johan, my new best friend. A least until the batteries run out on my camera and/or iPhone.

Deep Sea Fishing

In less than 36 hours after arriving in Costa Rica my friend Cody had us out on a boat for my first ever, deep sea fishing adventure. I had stopped at a pharmacy the day before to get some Dramamine as I tend to get seasick when the boat is not in motion and just bobbing up and down on the waves. I was trying to remember the elements of a photojournalistic story and the types of shots to take. I'm missing a good close-up portrait of Chino but I've got most of the other elements.

Captain Chino and his first mate took us out past the horseshoe-shaped bay that gives Playa Herradura its name. We picked up speed and headed out until the coast was just a small strip on the horizon. Chino knows all the best fishing spots so we headed to those to check things out.

Taking the water taxi out to our fishing boat.

Heading out to the open ocean past the horseshoe-shaped bay that give Herradura its name.

Sailfish are the sportsman’s fish and they are supposed to be released after they are caught so we were looking for tuna and grouper this trip. We would see where small flocks of birds were flying and diving and head to them. I knew from countless hours of Discovery channel that the birds were eating the smaller fish that were chased to the surface by bigger, predatory fish. In this case the bigger fish was tuna.

Casting a lure out to a patch of feeding tuna.

Lures were cast out into the feeding area and pulled in to attract the tuna and entice them to bite the lure. The tuna were very smart that day and preferred do be the diners and not the dinner. We tried several locations and found many schools of feeding tuna but did not get any bites.

Dropping the baited hook to the bottom where the grouper hang out..

So Chino headed out to a large rock cluster in about 180 feet of water that was right on the edge of a shelf that dropped off into really deep ocean. We dropped baited hooks down to the bottom and, in no time, the fish were biting. Now, 180 feet is a long way down so each fish took a while to reel in. Each line had two hooks on it and three times Cody reel in a double catch.

The First Mate unhooks the grouper Cody reeled in.

In about an hour at that spot, we caught 24 fish. 16 of them were grouper and the rest were a species I can’t remember the name of, but Cody told me they have a much too strong fish flavor for his taste. He also said that was the most he’d ever caught. I didn’t really want to catch more that we could eat and my Dramamine was wearing off so I let Cody know I’d had enough. By the time we had everything reeled in and set to go, I was in pretty bad shape. Soon after the boat got going I was doing much better. I love the clean ocean wind on my face and cruising across the waves.

We kept the grouper and gave the other fish to the first mate for his family. He graciously accepted the fish. Cody also invited Chino to bring his wife and join us for dinner that night. We took the fish to a beach-side restaurant and let them know we would be back that evening with friends for a fresh-caught dinner. Grouper was most definitely the “catch of the day”.

Captain Chino and his wife plus other friends join us for a dinner of fresh grouper.
That evening we had a nice dinner with several Costa Ricans and a couple of American ex-pats. There was a mix of Spanish and English spoken at the table that had me wishing I had gotten further along with my Rosetta Stone Spanish course. All-in-all it was a pretty good day that ended in a real nice evening.

Surprisingly Ambivalent

I am on a plane to Costa Rica as I write this. Much to my dismay, I am completely ambivalent about this fact. I’ve been talking about going to Costa Rica for years and overcame resistance to make it happen this time. Yet, I cannot muster up the slightest bit of excitement. I am hoping it will change once I get there and it begins to sink in that I am actually there.

Leading up to this trip, there has been a lot going on in my life and I haven’t really had much time to think about it as much more than a looming deadline. Deadline for projects to be completed and living arrangements made were vying for my attention, not to mention my inner conflict of whether I really wanted to stay in LA or go back to New York. In addition, there have been personal changes that leave me without my favorite travel companion.

Between working on projects and intensive learning of Lightroom, Premiere Pro, Final Cut Pro, Spanish and anything else I can find online about photography business and photography in general, I have lived on my computer for the last 5 months even more than usual. I brought many learning things with me including the very textbook-like Best Business Practices for Photographers by John Harrington. But my brain is on overload so I think I’m going to forget all that for the next two weeks and just be. Just be in the moment and just be in Costa Rica.

Of course I will ‘just be’ with my camera. No detail will escape my lens. If I haven’t taken over 1000 pictures by the end of my trip, I haven’t gotten out enough. I am also there visiting my old song-writing partner so I expect some new music to come out of this. So I guess I have more plans than I thought. I will be posting regularly on this blog and my 90 Days photo blog for those who want to experience this vicariously through me. It is in the moment that I will find my passion for this trip through images, words and music.

Costa Rican Offer

I am in transition – vocationally, personally, spiritually and geographically. This entire blog is mostly about the first but this post is mostly about the last.

I left New York in the beginning of December (2010) and returned to Phoenix. I floated around Arizona for the holidays, spending it with family and friends. Then, in mid-January, I landed in Bakersfield, California. This was not a destination, it was just a stopover on the way to LA, an easy location to get my bearings and finish up some freelance projects so I could get paid and then find a home in LA. I had expected to be in my own place in LA by now but that hasn’t happened.

One of my freelance clients has been dogging it and a project that was supposed to be two weeks has now turned into two months. I can’t complain too much, it has turned into more work, including producing a video of their process. So now I am planning a trip back to Phoenix to shoot video and portraits for this company, delaying my move another month.

So this is not Costa Rica but it is Roatan, Honduras so I imagine they look similar.

I was given an opportunity to go to Costa Rica in the next couple of months for some shooting and some free time. It wasn’t going to pay much but it also wasn’t going to cost very much. I originally turned it down because I didn’t want another delay in getting my life started in LA. But, recently, I reconsidered.

I don’t really have to be anywhere at any time. I have no rent, no car payment and no job I have to go to at a specific time. I’m sure I’ll have other opportunities to go to Costa Rica in the future but why not take advantage of this opportunity while I can? Who knows what the future will bring?

I will be going for 2-3 weeks. I will stay around San Jose for a while but then have some time at Playa Herradura on the Pacific side photographing condos and resorts there. I will also go to the Caribbean side to photograph a former cattle ranch on 1000 acres of land overlooking the ocean. In addition, I found out that my trip will include a side-trip to Panama City to photograph more condos and land. Visit two countries for the price of one–too good to pass up.

So I am in the stages of planning the trip. I have to finish the video and also have to coordinate schedules in Costa Rica so it looks like I will be going towards the end of April. That will delay my move to LA another couple of months, but I am ok with that. This will be a great adventure and allow me to practice many things, including my Spanish.

I want to improve my Spanish because I have another trip planned for October. But more about that trip next week.