Fishing (For Photographic Opportunities)

Elle May 28, 2014

I've been fishing exactly once and was advised to never, ever, attempt it (really ever) again.

It was several years ago and an impromptu night fishing trip after a wedding in Houston. Even then, I never said no to a good adventure. Around midnight, when most of the guests were headed to their rooms, a few cousins and I headed down to Kemah for night fishing off a private dock in Galveston Bay. A family friend had built (and rebuilt, post-hurricanes) a weekend getaway house, complete with fish lights installed in the bottom of the bay. In the wee hours of the morning, I learned how to bait a hook with frozen shrimp and cast properly. Almost every time we cast, we hooked a fish. I even caught a fighter that brought the rest of the family running down to my end of the dock when they saw how my pole was doubled over and liable to snap. All the while, they told me this level of action was not a normal fishing experience by any means and that I've been ruined for all subsequent "real" fishing trips.

Fast forward to Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend. Despite the warnings I've been given, I agreed to go when the boyfriend proposed a lazy fishing expedition at a local public park "lake" meant to satisfy suburban yuppie yearnings for the outdoors without having to drive much farther than the local Whole Foods. As added insurance policies against boredom in case fishing turned out to be as uneventful as everyone has told me, I brought my DSLR, a canister of soap bubbles, and an iPad.

It ended up being a lot of fun and despite not catching anything, I enjoyed the sun and lounging about fiddling with my camera. The photos were definitely underexposed and required a lot of editing in post as a result of what I like to call "lazy photography" - I've been so used to shooting with wide apertures due to low light or motion situations, I forgot to increase the shutter speed when shooting with a narrow aperture. I will definitely be planning some treks to practice using narrow apertures in the near future, but I love how "arty" some of the shots below came out.

The reel in an instant

Close up of the basket that would have stored fish if we had caught anything.
However genuine to the fishing experience, the little voice of practicality in my head wanted to know how this was a good vessel since it wasn't water tight and would drip fishy water everywhere... I still wonder about that

Lots of turtles at this particular park lake... I wonder if some were former pets

Ducks and geese also

The bubbles I brought with some post-editing to exaggerate their shapes. As it turns out, it's hard to both blow bubbles and photograph them before they sink and pop.

Active Shooting Hours: 1.5
Review Hours: 1
Hours to Date: 144.5

You Can Pet Them!?

Elle May 4, 2014

That has been the highly consistent response from everyone when they heard about and saw our photos from the weekend. Long story short: we met and pet a couple of penguins as part of a private tour at SeaWorld San Diego - a surprise I arranged for the boyfriend's birthday.

Of course, it's en vogue right now to regard SeaWorld only with scathing vitriol given the release of the documentary Blackfish, but I find most such work to be unfairly one-sided, pushing one very specific agenda. And personally, while I detest making animals do stupid anthropomorphized tricks and disagree with that aspect of their business model, I do think there's value in having animals in a properly administrated zoo/aquarium setting for education purposes and to spread awareness of real conservation issues which are easy to ignore when they're occurring half a world away.

The up close tour was especially good for education and awareness - we were taken through the penguin encounter exhibits with a guide who provided a background on penguins and explained that as we head into the summer in the northern hemisphere, penguins are heading into winter, which is also their nesting and hatching season. To keep them on schedule with their natural habitat, the keepers gradually dim the lights and eventually turn them off entirely in the penguin exhibit to mimic the changing of the seasons. We went through a brief sanitation process, stepped through a foot bath, and proceeded to the offices and back area where we actually met a Macaroni penguin up close. We learned more about the species, anatomy, and SeaWorld's facilities and interacted briefly with her, including petting her gently on her head and back, which was everything I've ever dreamt it would be and more.

As part of the tour, we were also able to head into the back corner of the actual penguin encounter and see all of the birds they have on exhibit. Some of them were interested in our presence - in particular, a 30 year old male Emperor penguin named King Tut, who actually enjoys letting people pet him!! There is something so indescribably breathtaking about interacting with an actual emperor penguin - they're even more amazing in real life than even documentaries would suggest. Penguins are surprisingly soft and fluffy!! Their feathers are much softer than their waterproof qualities make them sound.

While we were at SeaWorld, we also saw a few other exhibits as well and fed some sea lions, but the penguins were absolutely, hands-down, the best part... and my best zoo/aquarium experience to date.

In terms of the photographic experience, the key this session brought to me was just the importance of a fast lens, the law of large numbers, and the importance of cropping. Especially with quick animals, I used the multi-shot feature to get a quick series of shots, resulting in at least one good shot from the bunch. In the penguin exhibit, I actually abandoned my DSLR altogether in favor of my iPhone because the DSLR was having trouble focusing in the dim lighting conditions. Additionally, since access was limited, I couldn't use the simple "just get closer" method to properly frame a shot. Thus, I had to ramp up the picture size and then crop many of the photos in post-editing to get visually interesting compositions and not just another snapshot.

Pair of Magellenic penguins from South America. Contrary to popular belief, not all penguins live on Antarctica & need frigid temperatures. These actually live in a mostly temperate environment & only need access to chilly waters.

The macaroni penguin we met up close!!

The penguin exhibit from the back corner, the lights outside the exhibit were turned off and they were gradually dimming the exhibit inside to mimic the approaching Antarctic winter.

King Tut. Petting a penguin is totally in my Top 10 of best life experiences so far!!

Dreams do come true!!

More Marine Mammals & Birds

Active Shooting Hours: 3

Review Hours: 2

Hours To Date: 134

Sea Lions and San Francisco

Elle March 23, 2014

The sea lions at Pier 39 are a San Franciscan institution, though they arrived to the docks only a few months before the Loma Prieta Earthquake in 1989. They bark constantly and playfully jostle for space on the wooden docks, pleasing tourists, marine biologists, and the occasional photog.

Some of these shots were difficult purely because I couldn't get any closer to the animals beyond using the 55-200mm zoom lens, which made composition a challenge. Some of that was resolved with post-editing and liberal use of cropping, but it makes me yearn for a telephoto lens. I don't need one, but any stretch of the imagination, but I would love to be able to zoom in to capture expression in detail when moving closer isn't an option.

Still, I managed to get several interesting images out of 40 or so tries.