The EcoPhotographer - Conservation Photography by Jerry and Marcy Monkman

Back to Work: Stratford, CT, York, ME, and Acadia.

Jerry Monkman — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 11:27:56 GMT

Clouds over dune grass on Long Beach in Stratford, Connecticut.

I'm in the midst of photographing several conservation projects for the Trust for Public Land. The first is a 2 mile-long barrier beach in Stratford, CT that protects a great salt marsh complex which is part of McKinney National Wildlife Refuge.

Rain shower over Long Island Sound.

During the two days I shot there a week or so ago, there were steady 10-15 mph winds which made getting sharp images of the grasses tough, but the reward were these great cloud formations and rain showers that blew through.

Charred tree in the condemned Pleasure Beach neighborhood in Stratford, CT.

An unusual aspect of this project is that it involves the demolition of about 40 homes that were condemned a few years ago after the bridge connecting the beach to Bridgeport burned down and was not replaced. It is an eerie site to see so many homes abandoned with windows broken and personal belongings strewn about, especially in such a beautiful seaside setting. The hope is that the entire 2-mile stretch of beach, which hosts nesting endangered piping plovers and least terns, will be turned over to the feds to be managed in conjunction with the wildlife refuge.

Marcy kayaking on the York River.

A project we worked on last week, involved two properties on the upper stretches of the York River in York, Maine. These projects will add land to a growing amount of protected open space along the beautiful tidal portion of the river, which has significant areas of salt marsh habitat and undisturbed upland forest. In the Mt. Agamenticus to the sea corridor, it is part of an unusually large wilderness for southern Maine and coastal New England.

Kayak in Frenchman Bay, Bar Harbor, Maine.

Today, I am photographing several hundred acres of land that protects well-managed forests and around three miles of shoreline on Branch Lake in Ellsworth, Maine. And since I'm in Ellsworth, I couldn't resist the opportunity to mosey on over to Acadia National Park and get my kayak wet in Frenchman Bay. Unfortunately, I also go my phone wet in Frenchman Bay, so don't try calling me today!

Until next time...
-Jerry

The Stamp Ceremony, etc.

Jerry Monkman — Wed, 21 May 2008 14:23:59 GMT

The Monkman clan at the 13 Mile Woods Stamp Ceremony in Errol, NH.

This blog entry won't blow you away with stunning images, but it will give you a chance to see the Monkman family in action. On Friday, we were honored to be part of the first day of sale ceremony in Errol, NH, which celebrated the release of the new 72 cent 13 Mile Woods stamp featuring our photo of the Androscoggin River at dawn. It was quite the celebration with music provided by the Berlin High School Band, speeches by several post office and local dignitaries, and more than 250 locals in attendance. Talk about an ego boost!

On Lookout Ledge in Randolph, NH.

On Saturday, the four of us hiked up to Lookout Ledge in Randolph, NH and its great views of the Northern Presidentials in the White Mountains. This was a research trip for the revisions we are making to our guidebook, Discover the White Mountains. The kids did a great job making the 1000 foot climb, barely noticing the swarming black flies that descended upon us for most of the hike. That night, we opened our White Mountain photo exhibit in Gorham at the White Mountain Cafe (hence the t-shirts). The cafe was packed for most of the time during the three hour party, during which we reconnected with old friends and made lots of new ones while discussing the beauty of the Whites and enjoying the cafe's newly acquired beer and wine license! The exhibit looks pretty good if I do say so myself, so check it out next time you're in the area.

The loves of my life at Tama Falls.

On Sunday, we continued our hiking research with a 3 mile loop hike that visits four waterfalls on the lower slopes of Mount Madison and Mount Adams. If you get a chance to hike the Brookside Trail off of US 2 in Randolph sometime, I highly recommend it. It travels to some beautiful waterfalls and passes though some great old-growth hemlock forest.

Quinn crossing Memorial Bridge below Cold Brook Fall.

Quinn, who turns five next month is really starting to take an interest in being out on the trail. He's feeling much older now, having participated in his pres-school graduation recently. Life just keeps rolling on...

We're heading back up to the Whites this weekend for some camping and more hiking so stay tuned...

Until next time,

Jerry

Print Display Party at the White Mountain Cafe in Gorham, NH

Jerry Monkman — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:38:00 GMT

The White Mountain Cafe in Gorham, NH - A Happening Place.

The day after our big stamp party, we'll be having a party at the White Mountain Cafe in Gorham, New Hampshire. We'll be signing books, but more importantly, we'll be unveiling what we hope will be a permanent gallery display of fine art photographs, culled from the best of our White Mountains collection. (To see our current fine art print collection, check out: http://www.jerryandmarcymonkman.com/fineart.htm.) The party goes from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday, May 17th, and is open to the public, so come enjoy a yummy dessert with some cappuccino while checking out some cool photos of the White Mountains.

Our new limited edition poster of Mount Washington.

One of the items we'll be unveiling at the White Mountain Cafe is our first limited edition poster. This one features one of our all-time favorite photos of the White Mountains, Mount Washington at Dusk. These posters are 20" x 24" and printed with archival inks and papers so they won't fade for at least 100 years! Each poster comes signed and numbered.

The White Mountain Cafe is on NH 16 in downtown Gorham, across the street from Burger King. We hope to see you there on the 17th!

Until Next time...
-Jerry

See Our Photo on a USPS Stamp on May 16th!

Jerry Monkman — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:15:07 GMT

On Friday, May16th, the US Post Office is releasing a new international rate stamp (for mail to Mexico and Canada), featuring a photo we shot of the 13 Mile Woods section of the Androscoggin River in Errol, New Hampshire. We're honored and excited to have our artwork used in this way, especially since this photo was originally made as part of a photo project meant to build awareness and raise funds to create the Errol Community Forest, 5300+ acres of forest in 13 Mile Woods that is now dedicated to wildlife conservation, outdoor recreation and sustainable logging. (To see more photos from this project, go to our website, http://www.ecophotography.com, and plug in "13 Mile Woods in the search field.)

On May 16th at 1:00, the Errol, Milan, and Berlin post offices will be hosting a First Day of Sale and Stamp Ceremony to mark the debut of the stamp. The party is at Mollidgewock State Park, right next to the river on NH 16 in Errol. Marcy and the kids and I are all making the trip up, and the kids are really hoping to see their first moose!

The stamp is generating plenty of interest already with a few local papers and New Hampshire Public Radio all running stories about it recently. Here are a couple of story links:

Manchester Union Leader: www.unionleader.com/article.aspx?headline=Signed%2C sealed%2C delivered%3A River photo is now a stamp&articleId=d7b30a5c-110b-4622-85fc-10583edfc500

Portsmouth Herald: www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080501/ENTERTAIN/80501013/

More announcements coming soon....

-Jerry

Picturehouse Chicago

Jerry Monkman — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 19:42:17 GMT

The EcoPhotography team at Picturehouse Chicago.
(Thanks goes to Josh Slaymaker from Grant Heileman Images for taking this shot.)

Marcy, the kids and I have embarked on a week-long adventure to...

the Chicago suburbs!

Actually, we're visiting with Marcy's parents for the week in Oak Brook, which is always a great experience, and this time we'll be joined by her brother's faimly from Colorado and her sister's family from L.A., so it's a big family reunion and a lot of fun.

Since we were here and had free baby-sitters - thanks Grandma and Papa! - we were able to attend the Picturehouse show at the River East Art Center in Chicago yesterday. There were about 60 stock agencies there and 400+ art buyers making the rounds, checking out the photos, eating the complimentary food, and connecting with business partners and old friends. We met lots of great people, made a few new friends, and shared war stories with a few old ones (o.k., the stock photo industry isn't exactly a war zone, but it has been a rather turbulent industry for the last decade or so.) If you are an art buyer and haven't been to a Picturehouse Event, you should check it out because it is really the only place you can speak with all of the major stock photo suppliers in one place. The next U.S. event is in New York in October. Hopefully, we'll see you there.

In the meantime, we'll be enjoying lots of deep dish pizza before we head back home and dive into finding some new great trips to add to the second edition of Discover the White Mountains.

Until next time...
-Jerry

Spring Skiing in King Ravine.

Jerry Monkman — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:37:56 GMT

The EcoPhotographer climbs the headwall on King Ravine in New Hampshire's White Mountains.

Last Wednesday, I was invited to hike up into King Ravine on the north side of Mount Adams in the White Mountain National Forest and photograph some friends skiing the gullies on the headwall. King Ravine is a classic glacial cirque, with a steep semi-circular headwall that flattens into a U-shaped valley carved by a glacier during the last ice age (or two). It doesn't receive quite as much snow as the more famous White Mountain east-facing ravines, especially Tuckermans, but it definitely has plenty of snow this spring.

The hike to the bottom of the headwall takes about three hours from US 2 in Randolph. Then you are faced with slopes that rise at an angle of 50 degrees and greater in places. I was without crampons and ice axe for some reason (I guess I'm thinking spring) and found it fairly challenging to climb up the gullies, particularly when I was breaking trail. It was well worth the effort though, as the views from the headwall are quite dramatic.

Dave Murphy rests during his climb up the Great Gully.

As you can see here, "Murph" was smart enough to bring his ice axe and he was also nice enough to let me use it for my descent of the headwall. While I can climb up with the best of them, I know I have nowhere near the skills necessary to safely ski down this stuff. This is strictly expert terrain. However, just hiking down proved to be enough a challenge for me as it was easy to slip and slide several hundred feet down the gully, which thankfully I didn't do, but my camera did (it came to a rest in a little bush without a scratch!)

In hot pursuit...

Skiing "The Seven" in Black and White.

The headwall is not quite a cliff, but it is steeper than any stairwell I have ever climbed.

Doug Mayer carving a telemark turn on "The Seven"

As you can see, all of these guys are using telemark gear, which is really the only way to go when climbing and skiing some of these narrow ski chutes. By the way, you'll be hearing more about Doug Mayer (in the photo above) in this blog soon. Doug and his business partners, Matt and Jenna Bowman, have asked Marcy and I to hang some of our White Mountains prints in their happening Gorham caffeine distribution center, The White Mountain Cafe. We should have some prints up by the middle of May, which is when we'll also be introducing our first limited edition poster, a photo of Mount Washington at Dusk. In the meantime, if you're in Gorham, stop in the cafe and enjoy the coffee, sandwiches, pastries, and free wi-fi. It's right downtown on Rt. 2/16, across the street from Burger King.

Until next time...
-Jerry

Choosing an LCD Monitor for Digital Imaging

Jerry Monkman — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 09:01:37 GMT

Warning: this gets pretty geeky at times!

A recent encounter with a friend’s 23” widescreen LCD monitor made me realize that I am little behind the times. Although I have been teaching in my workshops that the monitor you use for image editing should be replaced every couple of years, I have happily been plugging away on my trusty 19-inch CRT for almost four years now. After seeing that big LCD, I came down with monitor envy and I made a quick trip to a big box electronics store to see what is out there. The wall of bright colorful monitors was impressive and a bit overwhelming, and I instantly realized I would need to do a little research into what makes a good monitor for an outdoor photographer like me who shoots digitally and spends countless hours on the computer editing and “developing” my images.

The first thing I noticed is that finding a new CRT is like finding a local lab to process E-6 film in my home state of New Hampshire. They practically no longer exist. A few years ago, imaging professionals were preaching that CRT’s were necessary for critical work and that LCD’s should be avoided for those tasks. That is no longer the case, as LCD technology has improved considerably to the point that many monitors now match or surpass CRT’s in their ability to render tone and color accurately. In addition to that good news is the fact that LCD’s are much easier to make in the widescreen format, and of course they are much lighter. LCD’s are the obvious choice when buying a new monitor today, but the challenge from a consumer’s standpoint is sorting through the myriad choices when deciding which monitor is best for your image editing and your budget.

The first, and I think easiest, choice to make is between a widescreen model (16:9 aspect ratio) and a traditional model (4:3 aspect ratio.) For photographers, a widescreen monitor is the obvious choice because the software we use, especially Photoshop CS3, Lightroom, and Aperture, are really designed to be used with a wider screen. If you are intent on being a two-monitor person, then the traditional monitor format is still a reasonable choice, but I love working on the widescreen and recommend you try one out if you’re on the fence about it.

After deciding on a format, there are several monitor specs to consider including brightness, contrast ratio, viewing angle, color gamut, and resolution. All current model LCD’s have plenty of brightness and contrast. In fact, most screens come preset to display too bright of an image and the brightness as well as contrast may need to be toned down during calibration to insure that they don’t blow out highlight detail. Because of this, higher end monitors often have a lower contrast ratio, in the 400:1 to 1000: 1 range then less expensive monitors, so if you opt for a more affordable choice, try to convince a dealer to let you calibrate a floor sample so you can confirm that they can maintain color fidelity and detail when their brightness is turned down.

The viewing angle spec describes how much you can change your line of sight from side to side and still have the monitor display an acceptable image. You will notice that as you sit directly in front of the monitor, color and tone is fairly uniform from corner to corner (if it’s not, move on to another choice,) but as you change your point of view, colors will start to shift, contrast goes down, and some areas of the screen will start to look darker. Manufacturer specs will list viewing angles as anywhere from 150 degrees to 170 degrees (and beyond.) The way this is determined can vary greatly from manufacturer to manufacturer, so the only way to truly tell if a viewing angle is acceptable is to view the monitor in person. Obviously, the bigger the monitor, the more important a large viewing angle becomes.

In my opinion the most exciting feature of the new LCD monitors is an increased color gamut. For years, we’ve all been working on our color images using two main color spaces, sRGB and Adobe RGB, with sRGB being the smaller gamut used for monitor displays and Adobe RGB being the larger gamut that we use to prepare images for printing (I know some of you are using the even bigger space, ProPhoto RGB, but that’s not even part of the equation for monitor displays yet.) A couple of years ago, only the very best LCD’s displayed all of the colors in the sRGB color space, let alone a high percentage of Adobe RGB. Today, the top of the line monitors are capable of displaying 90% or more of the Adobe RGB color space. Working in this wider color space means that you will get much blacker blacks and smoother tonal gradations in your display, which reduces the possibility of banding and increases the amount of shadow detail that you will see on the screen.

To achieve near Adobe RGG color, manufacturers have built some of the graphics processing, specifically the color look up table or LUT for short, into the monitor itself (bypassing the computer’s graphics card,) which lets them use ten or twelve bit color versus the typical eight bit. This means that buying into a wide gamut monitor will cost you – typically twice as much as monitors with a smaller color gamut. If you can view a wide gamut LCD next to a smaller gamut model, do it. You will be impressed.

Lastly, you need to consider resolution and monitor size, which is a simple proposition. Choose the highest resolution screen you can find for the size monitor you are buying (this will give you the most detail and sharpness in your display,) but don’t bother comparing resolutions between different-sized screens. Resolution is measured in pixels, i.e. 1680 x 1050 is 1680 pixels wide and 1050 pixels tall. A resolution of 1680 x 1050 on a 20-inch screen is going to look sharper than the same resolution on a 23-inch screen because the wider screen has to spread those pixels out over a bigger area, so to achieve a similar look the 20-inch, the 23-inch screen will need a higher resolution. Obviously, the size monitor you choose will depend primarily on how much space you have on your desktop and how much money is in your bank account.

Even after learning what features to focus on, you will have a lot of monitors to sort through when making your buying decision. After talking with several manufacturers and looking at a wide variety of screens, I’ve compiled the following list of monitors as a starting place for those ready to buy. These products range in price from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand. All are more expensive than the typical monitor included with a new computer system purchase, but I feel the upgrade is worth it if you plan to do critical image editing.

If you are looking for an affordable big screen, check out the HP LP2465 ($649.00) from Hewlett-Packard, a 24-inch widescreen monitor with 1920 x 1200 resolution and a stated 178 degree viewing angle. Many monitors in this price range have trouble maintaining color fidelity when their brightness is turned down to an acceptable level for image editing, but this monitor does well in this regard and also responds very well when being calibrated with a colorimeter like Pantone’s Spyder. If you want to go real big, take a look at the 30-inch version (LP3065.)

Apple was at the forefront of the LCD monitor revolution, eschewing CRT’s in 2001, and they designed their line of LCD’s with the graphics professional in mind. Their Apple Cinema Display line-up includes 20-inch, 23-inch, and 30-inch widescreen displays, which range in price from $599.00 to $1799.00. Apple has worked hard to maintain consistency between the displays, so you will find that they all maintain excellent color fidelity from corner to corner with their stated viewing angle of 170 degrees. They also look pretty nice on the desktop with their snazzy brushed aluminum case that not only looks good, but provides a nice neutral viewing environment. And in case you were wondering, these displays work on both Mac and Windows PC’s.

NEC has a large range of LCD choices, but of most interest to photographers doing critical color work is their line of high gamut monitors, denoted by an “SV” or “LED” at the end of the model number. These models range in size from a 19-inch traditional format screen to a 26-inch widescreen. They are pricey compared to the Apple and HP monitors - for example the Multisync LCD2490WUXiSV, a 24-inch widescreen panel retails for $1749.99 - but the extra money gives you a panel with an internal 12-bit gamma look up table that can display 93% of the Adobe RGB color space. You also get a colorimeter thrown in.

LaCie’s 300 and 500 series LCD’s also use an internal 12-bit color look up table to provide excellent color and tonal reproduction. Their top of the line 526 ($2099.99) display boasts 95% of the Adobe RGB color space, and all LaCie monitors come with a LaCie easy hood, a gray hood that can be fit around the monitor to reduce the ambient light reaching the display and improving the viewing environment for precise color work. You can also optionally purchase LaCie’s “blue eye colorimeter” for calibration that is specifically tailored to LaCie’s monitors.

Eizo’s ColorEdge line of monitors are built specifically for graphics professionals and photographers. Like the NEC and LaCie displays mentioned above, Eizo ColorEdge displays have built-in color look up tables (either 10-bit or 12-bit) resulting in a wide color gamut (their top of the line CG221 achieves 100% Adobe RGB, but retails for more than $5000.00). The CE240W ($1799.00) features a 24-inch widescreen panel, a monitor hood, and and Eizo’s patented brightness stabilization technology. Eizo is unique in offering a five year warranty on their displays, which is a year or two longer than what most other manufacturers offer.

Note: All the monitors here use digital connections (DVI), which provides a more accurate display of digital images than analog connections because there is no need for a digital-to-analog conversion (30-inch displays require something called a dual-link DVI connection.) All new graphics cards have a DVI connection, but if you have an older computer, you’ll need to confirm that your graphics card will connect to new your new monitor.

For a schedule of Jerry’s upcoming photo workshops, including his August 2008 tour of Ireland, visit www.jerryandmarcymonkman.com.

Maple Syrup is Running.

Jerry Monkman — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 20:05:33 GMT

Sap buckets and barn in Pomfret, Vermont.

Yesterday, I made the drive up to Woodstock, Vermont to pitch a couple of new book ideas to the publisher of our book, The Colors of Fall (The Countryman Press.) There's really no need to actually make the trip in person these days, but I love having the excuse to make the 2 1/2 hour drive. It's just one of those iconic parts of New England. Of course, early April is a tough time to do scenic photography in northern New England. The snow is melting and less than fresh looking, the trees are bare, and the mud is deep. The one compelling activity going on is maple syrup production, and this week proved to be a good week for it as the weather cooperated to make some strong sap flows (the sap runs best when temps get below freezing at night, but warm up during the day.)

Sugarbush Farm in Woodstock, Vermont.

About ten minutes up a hill along a muddy road from downtown Woodstock brings you to Sugarbush Farm. I've visited the farm before to buy some of their delicious aged cheddar cheese (I'm fond of the 4-year old sharp cheddar,) but I had never been there during sugaring season. Luckily, they had about 600 gallons of sap to boil when I got there. The black smoke is from the wood fire used to heat the sap. The white smoke is steam from the water evaporating off the sap.

Ralph Luce tends the fire in the evaporator.

Sugarbush Farm is owned by the Luce Family. Ralph and his brother Jeff are the third generation of Luce's to work on the farm and they were kind enough to let me hang out in the sugar house for an hour so and take some pictures. On average it takes about 40 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup. This year, maple syrup is running up around $50.00 a gallon due to high worldwide demand and the higher cost of diesel fuel.

Bucket o' syrup.

Sap buckets on sugar maples lining a dirt road in Pomfret, Vermont.

It's not called mud season for nothing. The dirt roads in New England from late March through May can be tough to drive on. My all wheel drive Subaru wagon seems to make it on most of the roads (I haven't gotten stuck yet,) but it rides a little lower than I'd like. Last year, I scraped a hole in my muffler visiting sugar houses in Vermont. By the way, if want to see last year's sugar house photos, check out Sweet Spring in New England.

Well, that was a fun afternoon. Now I just have to make some pancakes!

Until next time...

-Jerry

Last Winter Hike - Mount Washington.

Jerry Monkman — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 20:15:47 GMT

Winter Dawn - White Mountains.

I meant to make this blog posting almost two weeks ago, but the night after taking the above photo, I came down with the flu and spent the next ten days getting back to where I can work again. Whew - I'm glad that's over!

In any event, on March 18th, my friend Ty Wivell and I were led by local climbing guide Paul Cormier on a sunrise hike up to this spot in the col between Mount Washington and Mount Clay. We had originally planned on hiking the day before, but 80 mph winds on the summits nixed that idea. Instead we met on the 18th at 3:30 a.m. at the base of the Cog Railway, and soon began the hike up in the dark, though the moonlight was so bright we didn't even need headlamps until the moon set around 5:00. We arrived at the above spot a little after 6:00 and found calm winds and beautiful pre-dawn light. We couldn't have planned it any better.

Paul and Ty below the summit of Mount Clay. Mounts Adams and Madison are in the distance.

We spent the next 2-plus hours shooting and hiking up to the summit of Mount Clay which has a spectacular view of the Great Gulf and the northern Presidentials, which is why I picked this spot for our little morning photo shoot.

The three of us head towards the summit of Mount Clay.

There were a couple of new pieces of equipment along for the ride on this shoot. This was my first shoot with my new Canon 1DsMarkIII camera. It performed quite well. I appreciated it's smaller, lighter batteries, which held up nicely in the cold, and I was more enamored with its live view feature than I expected (though once the sun was up and bright it was hard to use the LCD for much.) During post-processing, besides liking the big 21-plus megapixel files, I was happily surprised at the ability to recapture shadow detail without adding additional noise. A much bigger improvement over the 1DsMarkII than I expected.

The other piece of new gear is called an intervalometer, which is basically a fancy cable release that lets you set up the camera to shoot as many exposures as you want at regular intervals. For the above shot of the three of us hiking, I secured the camera to my tripod and set it to take 30 images, 3 seconds apart. I pushed the button, and off we went while the camera captured the scene. Very cool.

Ty photographing Paul on Mount Clay.

Mount Adams.

All in all, it was a pretty great morning!

Until next time...
-Jerry

Photo Tips in AMC Outdoors.

Jerry Monkman — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 18:48:07 GMT

Back in December I was one of the judges for the Appalachian Mountain Club's annual photo contest. I think this was my fourth time taking a turn with this task. It has been interesting to watch the submissions transition from mostly mediocre prints and a few slides to primarily digital submissions with an overall higher quality. The technology has really taken root (big statement there, I know.)

Anyway, if you are an AMC member, you can see the results of the contest in the April issue of AMC Outdoors, which just arrived in my mailbox today. If you're not a member, you can see the winners here.

Also in this issue is an article I wrote, called Photo Tips from a Pro. It's on-line too.

Until next time...
-Jerry

Canon EOS-1Ds MarkII for sale.

Jerry Monkman — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 20:33:23 GMT

This camera can be yours!

I am sadly parting with the first digital camera I ever bought, my trusty Canon EOS-1Ds MarkII (o.k, it's not that sad because I just bought the MarkIII.) I've used this camera for almost all of my photography since I bought in November of 2004, and it has played the role of unsung hero in my efforts to document important conservation projects, never once failing to operate properly, creating beautiful, big 16.7 megapixel files on demand. I am still amazed that I am able to make sharp, detailed 2 x 3 foot prints from the files this camera creates.

O.K., enough of the sentimental stuff... If you are interested in adding this beauty to your arsenal, it is currently on sale at ebay, with a minimum bid of $2999.00 (it was $8000.00 new). Just click here for all of the details. And if you have any questions about the camera, just shoot me an e-mail (nature@ecophotography.com) or call me at 888-705-8274. Thanks!

Until next time...
-Jerry

Spring Fever in Outdoor Photographer

Jerry Monkman — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:59:12 GMT

Oak Tree in Spring, Sandwich, New Hampshire.

No, it's far from spring in New Hampshire today, but I thought I'd let you all know we have a nice little article in the April issue of Outdoor Photographer describing some of our favorite New England locations for spring shooting as well as some photo tips. If you are a subscriber to the magazine, it probably arrived in your mailbox today or yesterday. If not, you can check out the article on-line at the Outdoor Photographer website.

Let me know what you think.

Until next time...
-Jerry

Conservation Project Follow-Ups.

Jerry Monkman — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:24:29 GMT

.
You can help protect this fishing hole on the Connecticut River.

I thought today I would bring you up to date on a few conservation projects I have mentioned in this blog over the last couple of years:

1) Connecticut River Forest, Clarksville, New Hampshire. Last summer, I spent a couple of days photographing this project for the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests. This 2100 acre property, just south of the river's headwaters region features 5 miles of undeveloped river frontage, making this a unique conservation opportunity in the watershed. The Forest Society needs to raise 2.75 million dollars by June to complete the deal. For more information or to make a donation, visit the SPNHF website here.

Dawn on Katahdin Lake - conservation success story.

2) Maine Woods, Millinocket, Maine. If you've been reading this blog, you've seen me make a few posts regarding the protection of 6000+ acres around Katahdin Lake in what is now Baxter State Park (see Brush with Greatness.) In November, another 20,000+ acres was conserved through a collaboration between the State of Maine, the Town of Millinocket, the Trust for Public Land, and Roxanne Quimby. Ms. Quimby purchased 8,900 acres of forest in the Wassataquoik Valley, adjacent to the Katahdin Lake parcel. This is remote forest teeming with wildlife. (If you're not familiar with the work of Roxanne Quimby, I suggest you read the March/April issue of Yankee Magazine which has a great profile of her and her conservation efforts in the Maine woods. She is a fascinating woman who now owns 90,000 acres of the Maine woods.) To read the complete details of this deal, check out the TPL press release.

Sunset on Indian Pond on the Kennebec River near Moosehead Lake - condos anyone?

3) Plum Creek's Moosehead Lake Development Proposal. In 2006, I spent a week in Maine's Moosehead Lake Region making pictures for the Natural Resources Council of Maine (see my earlier post Up Plum Creek.) At that time NRCM wanted photos of the region to help promote their alternative plan for development in the Moosehead Region. Plum Creek, who owns around million acres of forest in the region, was proposing an extensive resort complex complemented by 1000+ home lots. NRCM and most other conservation groups feel this development is inappropriate for the region. Since then, Plum Creek has revised their plan which is currently under review by Maine's Land Use Regulatory Commission (LURC), but the debate continues. For up-to-date info about this issue, check out the Plum Creek page on the NRCM website.

Let me know if you have any questions about these or any other projects you read about here. Thanks for your interest!

Until next time...
-Jerry

Photo Business Help.

Jerry Monkman — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:25:10 GMT

Not Quite Ready for Prime Time.

While I try to shoot as much as possible in the winter, I tend to spend a lot of time in the office working on fine-tuning our business and creating more efficient workflows. This year Marcy and I have completed some exciting (he says with sarcasm) projects like upgrading our accounting software to Quickbooks and incorporating the business. We also implemented Adobe Lightroom as our main image editor and library manager for new images in production (we still use Extensis Portolio for our main image catalog.) Lightroom is actually proving to be a big time saver and is downright fun when it comes to creating slideshows and web galleries.

Another winter activity I've taken up is reading other photo blogs. From a business standpoint, there are a few I thought I'd mention here as being worth reading on a regular basis if you are in photography as a long term career. The first is Photo Business News and Forum, by John Harrington. John is a very successful DC-area portrait photographer who by the looks of his blog, could easily be a professor of business at any major university. In my opinion, every working photographer should read his posts and buy his book, "Best Business Practices for Photographers."

Next on the list is A Photo Editor, by Rob Haggart, former photography director at Men's Journal and Outside Magazine. Almost all of Rob's posts are geared towards educating photographers and helping them succeed in their careers. He is very generous with his time and ideas, especially for a guy who probably was bugged to extremes by every adventure and fashion photographer wannabe on Earth (myself included.)

Other blogs I check on regularly are Dan Heller's Photo Business Blog, Photo District News's PDNPulse, and Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson.

Check them out - you'll definitely learn a few things.

Until next time...
-Jerry

NANPA Summit Review.

Jerry Monkman — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 09:37:36 GMT

My boy Quinn enjoying the sunshine in Florida's panhandle.

Quinn definitely got some good beach time in with his sister and mom last week, while I toiled away indoors at the North American Nature Photography Association's annual Summit in Destin, Florida. Actually, I had a great time at the summit, though I do wish we had built in a couple of extra days so I could get some R & R. Ah, the life of an underfunded conservation photographer.

Every year, the NANPA Summit seems to provide more time to conservation photography, and this year I was honored to lead a breakout session on Saturday titled Think Globally, Shoot Locally - Conservation Photography on a local level. I was really impressed at the attendance of my sessions (I would guess about 300+ attended either the morning or afternoon version of the talk,) and I'm sure many people were inspired to attend after watching some great conservation photography slide shows earlier in the week. Here's a brief rundown of those presentations:

Robert Glenn Ketchum gave a keynote speech on Thursday where he chronicled the history of conservation photography in the U.S., from its beginnings with Hudson River School painters through the work of post-modern photographers like Richard Misrach. Ketchum is one of the more inspiring speakers in the world of photography and he finished with a rousing call to action in support of a projcet he is working on in Southwest Alaska. Check out his website, www.robertglennketchum.com, and look for the Alaska: Bristol Bay Southwest(2) gallery under photographs. You won't be disappointed.

National Geographic Photographer Nick Nichols gave a stirring keynote presentation on Friday, highlighting his conservation work in Africa, where he has been instrumental in the creation of numerous national parks. His talks are always compelling and funny, accompanied by wonderful video of him and his assistants at work, and his photographs consistently remind me that it is possible to photograph nature in completely new and refreshing ways. Check out his work here: michaelnicknichols.com/

Friday night featured the NANPA Environment Committee's Outreach Event, and this year the speakers were Christina Mittermeir of the International League of Conservation Photographers and Brian Skerry, an acclaimed underwater photographer who is working tirelessly to conserve the world's ocean habitats. The ILCP is a relatively new organization that is quickly gaining momentum and sending some of the world's best photographers to conservation hot spots around the world. Brian Skerry showed compelling images of conservation stories he has worked on over the years including the harp seal harvest in Canada.

Unfortunately, family obligations meant I had to miss Nature Photographer of the Year James Balog's presentation Saturday night, but I'm sure he capped off a great week of inspiring conservation-oriented slide shows.

I think this was the ninth NANPA Summit I've attended, and I've never been disappointed. It's all about inspiring imagery and reconnecting with good friends and it has become an almost necessary annual kick-off to my year of photography. Yep, I'm a little juiced right now...

Until next time...

-Jerry

The Mystery of Selling Stock Photography.

Jerry Monkman — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 19:40:14 GMT

Swimmers at Lily Bay, Moosehead Lake, Greenville, ME - just average or a top 5% photo?

Marcy and I have been selling our images as stock photography for about 15 years now. Most of that stock we sell directly to clients, but we also are represented by a couple of traditional stock photo agencies and we have our images available through some of the newer on-line only agencies. Predicting which images will sell well is somewhat of a mystery to me as we sell some images that I think of as just average while some of what I consider to be my best images never sell. This just proves to me that appreciating photography is a very subjective exercise.

Before the on-line agencies came into existence, we would send a selection of slides or digital files to our traditional agencies who would then select 50 - 75% of those images to represent. Of course, I always think everything I send them is worth marketing, but I came to feel good about our acceptance percentage, realizing that some subject matter and style don't always fit an agency's view of what they should be offering (or they already have that subject covered.) I'm still surprised that some images are chosen over others, but that's human nature I guess. However, beyond "accepted" or "rejected" there usually isn't any other feedback from the traditional agencies.

On-line agencies (or portals) take varied approaches to adding work to their collections. For example, Alamy.com, accepts all images submitted once you pass an initial quality test. Portals like Photographersdirect.com and AGPix.com accept all of your work because you're paying for the space. The Photoshelter Collection (http://psc.photoshelter.com/) edits submissions much like a traditional agency, only marketing the images that they feel fit their vision for the collection. However, Photoshelter as well as Photographers Direct take the additional step of ranking photos so that some stand out from others. Photographers Direct ranks every image on a scale from 5 to 9, with nine representing the top .25% of images submitted with 5 representing the bottom 10%. The Photoshelter Collection assigns a gold star (Editor's Choice) to those images they find most appealing or most marketable (I'm not sure which.)

With the subjective nature of appreciating photography, I'm not sure if this helps photo buyers or not, but I have a feeling these rankings can certainly both help and hurt a photographer's chance of selling a particular image. For example, the above image of "Swimmers at Lily Bay" received a ranking of 6 on Photographers Direct which puts it in the bottom 35% of images on the site and makes it ineligible to be added to most submission requests that come through the site because the site owner requires a ranking of 7 or 8 for many submissions. I'm not sure why the site owner feels compelled to limit our ability to submit images when he or she is charging us for space on the site, but at least the fee is nominal. On the other hand, that same photo was just chosen as an Editor's Choice for the Photoshelter Collection. I'm not sure what percentage of photos overall receive this designation, but only around 5% of our photos get the coveted "Gold Star." Editor's Choice images tend to show up first in image searches so the designation can improve the chances of an image selling. I can live with the fact that one editor thinks this photo is mediocre while another finds it quite compelling. As I've mentioned a couple of times now, appreciating photography is a very subjective process. What's challenging from my perspective is deciding which images to spend the effort working on to send out to these places. While I try to edit with our agencies' needs in mind, the kind of feedback we get from situations like this one lead me to focus on what our vision of photography is instead, sending out what we think is important and compelling and just letting the chips fall where they may. Hey, that's easier anyway!

Until next time,

-Jerry

Announcement: Photoshop and Lightroom Seminars and Acadia National Park Photo Tour

Jerry Monkman — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:49:32 GMT

For those of you who haven't been over to jerryandmarcymonkman.com in a while, you might be interested in a couple of instructional offerings I've lined up for this year:

During the second weekend in March I'll be teaching seminars on Photoshop (March 8th) and Lightroom (March 9th.) The cost is $95.00 per day and they will be based at the Hilton Garden Inn in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. You can find more details at: www.jerryandmarcymonkman.com/day_seminars.htm

I am also excited to be organizing and leading a 5-day photo tour in Acadia National Park the week of July 13th. This is the peak time of year in Acadia photographically, with lush foliage, flowers, and beautiful light The cost of the tour is $799.00, and more details can be found at: www.jerryandmarcymonkman.com/workshops.htm

Let me know if you have any questions about either of these classes.

Until next time...
-Jerry

Katahdin Lake Group Show at the Jameson Gallery.

Jerry Monkman — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 08:57:37 GMT

Katahdin Lake Dawn

For those of you that are in the Portland, Maine area, I wanted to let you know that some of my prints will be included in a group show at the Jameson Gallery featuring artwork made at Maine's Katahdin Lake. In 2005 and 2006 I photographed Katahdin Lake for the Trust for Public Land and their campaign to raise more than 14 million dollars to buy the lake and surrounding land. (TPL subsequently donated the Katahdin Lake parcel to the state of Maine to be added to Baxter State Park.) As part of the campaign to protect Katahdin Lake, a group of artists visited the lake to paint and photograph, donating their work to the fundraising campaign (see my earlier post, Brush with Greatness.)

The show at the Jameson Gallery features the work of the following artists:

Bill Bentley, Milton Christianson, Elaine Crossman, Marsha Donahue, Evelyn Dunphy, Deborah Grabber, Chris Huntington, Bill Landmesser, David Little, Bruce MacDonald, Abbot Meader, Caren-Marie Michel, Chris Polson, Jym St. Pierre, Paul Thibodeau, Michael Vermette, Ian White.

The show will be in the gallery from February 1st through March 15th with a reception on Saturday, February 2nd from 1-3 pm. The Jameson Gallery is located at 305 Commercial Street on the waterfront in downtown Portland, Maine. Their phone number is 207-772-5522.

I hope to see you there!

-Jerry

Cold Rain and Snow.

Jerry Monkman — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:54:53 GMT

The snowcat on New Hampshire's Mount Washington.

We've had a nice snowy winter in New Hampshire so far, but we also had a classic week of January thaw, with temps near 60 degrees at times. This warm spell coincided with a two-day workshop I led on the summit of Mount Washington a couple of weeks ago. As you can see from the above photo taken on the trip up, there was not a whole lot of snow up high on the mountain. We were however blessed with great visibility for much of our first day.

Rime Ice on the summit of Mount Washington.

Those high cirrus clouds in the above photo were accompanied by 65 mph winds (which reached 80+ after dark,) and followed by freezing rain and 100 yard visibility the following day. Needless to say, this kind of weather creates all kinds of challenges for a photographer. Shooting sharp images is tough with the wind blowing that hard, even with a tripod. To keep the above image sharp, I shot it at ISO 200, F11, and 1/400th of a second while hand-holding the camera and bracing my body against a railing on the Mount Washington Observatory's observation deck. If you are curious about experiencing the worst of mountain weather, but doing it in a safe way (we stayed in the warm and cozy living quarters of the Mount Washington Observatory,) participating in an observatory "EduTrip" is a great way to do it. For more info about experiencing the "Worst Weather in the World", visit www.mountwashington.org.

Sunrise at Creek Farm in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

The above spot on Sagamore Creek is only about a mile from our home in Portsmouth. It is a beautiful property preserved by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

Until next time...

-Jerry

Wild Acadia named a top photo book of 2007.

Jerry Monkman — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 09:06:43 GMT

Time to toot our own horn a little courtesy of Shutterbug Magazine. In their December issue, Shutterbug has named Wild Acadia one of their "Top Photo Books of 2007." The list of 30 titles includes traditional coffee table books by Ansel Adams, Robert Glenn Ketchum, and Norbert Rosing, as well as how-to books on subjects ranging from portaiture to close-up photography.

Also on the list is Ghana: An African Portrait Revisited, by Peter Randall, a fellow Portsmouth, New Hampshire based photographer. I guess our little city of 20,000 people is finally being recognized for being a hotbed for photography!

Until next time...

-Jerry