After a long weekend at the Mandarin Art Festival in Jacksonville, I really looked forward to my visit to St. Augustine (just about an hour south on I-95) for a morning of shooting at the famed Alligator Farm. I've talked about this place before: the birds find it to be fantastic for nest-building and chick-rearing because the alligators keep the waters safe of swimming predators like snakes and raccoons that feast on eggs. It's a bird photographer's paradise, because the boardwalk--new and improved this year--enables you to get up close to the action. And today, it gives me a chance to talk a little bit about using flash outdoors to fill in shadows and/or add light on to the camera side of your subject when the main light (the sun) is behind the subject. There's a lot of confusion on how to manage flash properly. I'll cover this extensively in a workshop next fall, but let's use this example to get started. Another egret startled this Snowy as I was photographing him/her from the new boardwalk, giving me a nice look at the bird's backlit breeding plumage. My Canon 580EX flash was used as flash fill. I calculated a basic exposure of 1/1600 @ f/8 (at ISO 400), using the old "sunny f/16" formula. (This formula has been around for decades, because it works!) On a bright sunny day, set an exposure as follows: shutter speed: 1/ISO (at ISO 400, this means a shutter speed of 1/400) lens opening: f/16 Because I shoot birds in action with long lenses, I want as fast a shutter speed as I can get. So I amend the "formula" to 1/1600 at f/8. Do the math, and you'll see that's the same exposure. This setting gives me proper exposure for the Snowy's white backlit feathers, but would underexpose the camera-side of the subject by about two stops. I'll use flash for fill light, as described below. The trick with using flash as fill light (with or without a Better Beamer) is use it subtly, to keep it from overpowering the ambient light. That means you'll add LESS of it. So calculate your camera's exposure settings (ISO, shutter speed, f/stop) as if you weren't using flash. Then, using the flash's exposure settings, dial in an appropriate amount of "minus" exposure compensation. Additional comment: The settings described above also require your flash to be able to synchronize with your shutter at high shutter speeds (Canon calls it "high-speed synch.") If your flash doesn't have this feature, calculate your basic exposure using your camera's maximum synch speed (usually 1/250 sec), then add flash as described above. (if you're synching at 1 / 250 sec, you will probably want to dial in the lowest possible ISO, thereby enabling as wide a lens aperture as you can get. This keeps the background in softer focus) More flash-outdoors tips later this week...and an explanation of how the Better Beamer works, and why it's the best bargain in the wildlife photographer's bag.

If you have visited Southwest Florida, you no doubt know about Sanibel Island. Located across a 3-mile long, $6-toll causeway from Fort Myers, Sanibel owes much of its charm (not to mention its high cost of living) to its relentless commitment to preserving an island paradise without big-box retailers, development, and asphalt. As a result, there are few big outdoor art shows on the island. The Sanibel-Captiva Rotary Club holds one at the same location--the Sanibel Community Center in mid-island--in early February. But I was booked elsewhere, so I jumped at the chance to be in this well-established show sponsored by the San-Cap Lions Club As a bird/wildlife photographer, I thought that this location (only a block away from the road that takes visitors to the famed Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge) would be perfect for me. Mix in a group of friendly volunteers from the Lions Club, a small but talented group of artists, add a few food vendors and a mobile brass band, and the net effect was a small, informal show with a community feel. Just what the Lions, no doubt, were after. The bad news: Outdoor spaces feature sand, sand, sand...the fine grained "sugar sand" that, when wet, locks itself tenaciously into proto-cement and, with evil intention, wedges into your shoes, artwork, tent, and poles. And unfortunately, Friday morning dawned wet and soggy. By the opening of the show at 9 AM, I'd already pulled up my half-buried outdoor carpet and stashed it in the van. (I'd have simply put it behind the booth, but there wasn't any storage space to be had for rug or extra inventory.) The sun finally broke through around 11 AM Friday, but it was already clear that the few show-goers who paid the $4 entry fee (all proceeds went to Lions charities) were largely retirees and vacationers who were there to browse, not to buy. However, artists with unique work, and those with a committed local following, still did quite well. An artist from New York who demonstrated how he made beautiful 3-D creations from wire mesh had a fairly steady crowd and many buyers. A local favorite who made colorful, whimsical metallic garden sculptures was busy, too. But I had only a few hundred dollars in the till at day's end. Only my second-place ribbon in the 2-D category (and 75% of the show fee for next year's event) and a couple of wonderful neighbors (fine art jeweler/metalsmith Christina Paluszek and glass designer Beth Collette) made it a happy drive home We were all looking forward to Saturday, when the year-round and seasonal residents would descend en masse ...or so we thought. But it never really happened. The weather was so beach-perfect that the sun-starved snowbirds headed there instead to get their tans on before flying north. As the day grew longer and hotter, I mentioned to neighbor Christina that I'd need a "4:30 miracle" to save the show. Which I got, when a customer came by after I'd already packed up the price tags and bought a show wall's worth of canvases. So...it all worked out the end...for me, at least. And I'll be back-- it's a local show, and I've got money in hand for next year, thanks to the ribbon. But I'll also be hoping to jury in to the Kiwanis show next February in the same space. It should be an interesting comparison.