Egrets, Everglades National Park, Florida (#WF0011)
I spent a winter once working as a canoe guide and naturalist in an outdoor center in the Everglades. So much more than a “river of grass,” Everglades National Park is a place where two inches of elevational gain can make a world of difference: from cypress swamp to longleaf pine forest; from sawgrass prairie to tropical “hammock.” It is a place where it is easy to become lost in a million-acre mangrove maze of rivers, sloughs and lakes. Once, I came upon a large number of common and snowy egrets in one of these lakes and was mesmerized by the almost surreal reflections they casts in the murky water. I decided to experiment by shooting at one and then two f-stops below what my camera was telling me to shoot at. By purposely underexposing the film, the dark water became black – enhancing the reflection of the egrets and allowing for a far more dramatic image than would have resulted had I shot at the f-stop the camera was suggesting.
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