The Story Behind the Shot #5

In this series, I am going to give some behind the scenes details for one image at a time. I’ll go over some of my settings, what I did in the field, why I composed it the way I did, or any other bit of information that I feel is relevant to the image. I will not be posting this series on Facebook; it is meant to be a bonus article for my subscribers.

Having a clean attractive background really helps when you want your photo to stand out. Busy backgrounds deter from the shot, and I avoid them unless they add to the scene. It is best to decide carefully in the field what you are looking for from your photos so that you can stay on task. I find going from one subject to another creates nothing but chaos. Focus on one nice bird and then stay with it. Make sure that you can isolate that bird against a good background then wait for your shot. I ‘d rather leave the field with one good image than a series of crappy images.

This photo was captured on Saunders Island at the “Neck” in the Falkland Islands. I walked up to the albatross colony in the early morning. I found so many chicks to photograph but also noticed this one that stood above the crowd with a beautiful sea green color for the backdrop. It was perfect! Well, not quite, I had to shimmy down a slippery slope to get low enough to be able to isolate the chick which sat upon its beautifully crafted nest. By getting low, I eliminated all the other nests, chicks and distractions so that I could zero in on this adorable ball of fluff. I waited for it to open its mouth or do something interesting before snapping the shot.

I used my Sony a1 and Sony 200-600mm lens at f/6.3, ISO 500, shutter speed 1/1250, manual mode, natural light, focused on the eye.

Blue Cypress Lake & Ft. DeSoto, Florida Workshops

Blue Cypress Lake Florida & More. - March 16-21, 2025

Blue Cypress Lake is a lake in Indian River County of the Treasure Coast in Florida. It is teaming with nesting Osprey. We will photograph the nests and the Osprey flying to and from the nests from a boat. We will be careful not to get too close as we do not want to disturb their behavior. However, we will be close enough for great images.

Price: $2150.00.

Dates: March 16-21, 2025

Limit 10

Included: Two Days on the Osprey boat with 2- three hour photo sessions each. The target during our time on the boat will be Osprey and Owls, photographing Osprey coming into the nest with nesting material and shooting the birds as they carry-on their daily duties. We should have good opportunities for Barred owls as well. The other three days will be spent photographing Roseate Spoonbills, White pelicans, Tricolor heron, and most of the other usual suspects <wink>.

This workshop will be led by award winning photographer and A Creative Adventure workshop leader Donna Bourdon.

Itinerary- 5 full days

Meet & Greet at hotel on March 16th at 12:00noon, during the Meet & Greet Donna will go over logistics, gear and camera settings. She will make sure that your camera is set up and ready to go. Donna will advise you on the best settings for flight photography and tracking. Followed by an afternoon photo session.

March 17, 18, 19, 20, -daily schedule will be an early morning shoot followed by a short break, image review or Photoshop session. Then out for an afternoon shoot once the light gets a bit softer.

March 21st- a morning photo shoot session before we say our goodbyes and participants make their departure arrangements after 10:30 am.

To join this trip (limited spaces) CLICK HERE.

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Ft. DeSoto, Florida Bird Photography Workshop - March 23-28, 2025

Fort DeSoto, Florida is by far one of the best locations for bird photographers, it is a scenic gathering place for such birds as waders, terns, shorebirds and predators during the springtime. We are choosing to go in the spring so that we can enjoy beautiful breeding plumage , nice weather and an abundance of birds to choose from. Some of the species that we have the opportunity to photograph include: both the white & dark-morph Reddish Egrets as well as Great Egret and Snowy Egret. We will most likely see Great Blue Heron, Yellow-crowned Night-Heron and Tricolored Heron as well as ibis, plover, oystercatchers, pelicans and so much more…

Price: $1899.00

Dates: March 23-28, 2025

Limit 10

This workshop will be led by award winning photographer and A Creative Adventure workshop leader Donna Bourdon.

Itinerary- 5 full days

Meet & Greet at hotel on March 23 at 12:00noon, during the Meet & Greet Donna will go over logistics, gear and camera settings. She will make sure that your camera is set up and ready to go. Donna will advise you on the best settings for flight photography and tracking. Followed by an afternoon photo session.

March 24, 25, 26, 27th, -daily schedule will be an early morning shoot followed by a short break, image review or Photoshop session. Then out for an afternoon shoot once the light gets a bit softer.

March 28th- a morning photo shoot session before we say our goodbyes and participants make their departure arrangements after 10:30 am.

To join this workshop CLICK HERE.

The Story Behind the Shot #4

In this series, I am going to give some behind the scenes details for one image at a time. I’ll go over some of my settings, what I did in the field, why I composed it the way I did, or any other bit of information that I feel is relevant to the image. I will not be posting this series on Facebook; it is meant to be a bonus article for my subscribers.

How Low Do You Go? The angle of declination is the degree to which the lens is pointing down or up at a subject. When laying belly down on the ground the distance from your subject to the background will appear more out of focus. This can be extremely valuable to know in the field, especially when dealing with clutter in the background. However, it has been my experience that if you get too low, your foreground will be out-of-focus, and the feet of your birds will disappear. That can be great or not so great depending on the shot you envision.

For years, I shot shorebirds and waders on the coasts of Florida, NY and NJ. I always lugged around a long prime lens like the 500mm or 600mm lens along with a heavy bulky tripod.; because at the time, that was the best that there was. I didn’t have an articulating screen on my camera, so getting on your belly or lowering yourself in a crouched position was the only way unless you carried the right-angle attachment for your camera (I never brought mine-it was not easy to use on a daily basis for shot after shot). My favorite position ended up being a half seated, half bent down really low pose to get somewhere in between a seated position and belly down position. This enabled me to capture the feet of my bird and also allowed the background to look far away and out of focus. Needless to say, it took a toll on my back! Move ahead many years later to mirrorless systems and voila—life is easier!

The shot above was captured at Matanzas Inlet in Florida on my one and only trip there approximately 10 years ago. Thanks to Bobby van Mierop (a local) for taking me to the Least tern colony that day. The action happened really fast, and I was lucky to have captured it. I focused on the bird on the ground as I knew her suitor would get close to her and bring her a fish and attempt to copulate. I loved the tiny shell on the beach and that the sand looked pristine. I composed my shot putting both birds directly in the center so I wouldn’t miss which side he came in from. In post processing, I evaluating the visual weight and then made a slight crop.

My shutter speed was too slow in hindsight. I wished it were 1/2500 instead of 1/1600 sec. Everything that needs to be sharp is sharp, but I do wish for less wing blur. But my justification is that the wing blur is that it implies motion and action, and this was an action shot <wink>. My aperture was f/8 as I was using a 1.4 teleconvertor. And, yes, I was in my crouched position. Manual mode, evaluative metering, natural light, AWB. I do wish the birds were captured against a soft blue ocean but that didn’t happen.

Well, the darn male tern never did give her the fish, even after multiple attempts. I had hoped she would bite him or reject him, but she did neither. Getting up early is always a good thing as birds are usually more active in the morning, it was a memorable photo shoot and even though I walked away with only this one shot, I will never forget my time at Matanzas Inlet.

Maasai Mara and Samburu ~ African Safari October 10- 20, 2025

Kenya, Maasai Mara and Samburu ~ African Safari
October 10- 20, 2025
Limit: 6 photographers

Price $10,999. based on double occupancy

We will have custom safari vehicles that are designed so that we can shoot out of the sides, or standing out of the top, and each person will have a row to themselves. This photo tour will be an amazing adventure with the very best guides and photographic opportunities.

Join award winning photographer and tour leader Denise Ippolito for an amazing safari adventure to the Maasai Mara National Reserve. The Mara is an area of preserved savannah wilderness in southwestern Kenya, along the Tanzanian border. It is home to the famous Big Five (lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and buffalo ). But more importantly, it is one of the most famous and significant wildlife conservation and wilderness areas in Africa. It is also noted for its exceptional populations of African leopard, large prides of lion and cheetah. A visit to the Mara pretty much guarantees multiple sightings daily of big cats. Of course, elephant, giraffe, zebra, wildebeest, rhino, hippos and more can be photographed as well. For a full species list CLICK HERE.

Unlike many other game parks in Africa and around the world, we do not face restrictions on when we can leave and return to the camp. The plan for most mornings is to leave before sunrise to locate the animals that we want to photograph before the sun comes up. Many of the cats are most active in the very early morning. Usually we will try to locate the cats that we have been with the previous evening. The guides have radios in all the vehicles such that on occasion, we may split up. Our guides are in radio contact with drivers from other camps and lodges as well. This gives us a good chance to get to wildlife encounters quickly assuming they are occurring near to our existing location. Most days, when the sun is hot and the light is too bright we will go back to camp, download our images, relax over a cool beverage and spend time preparing for the afternoon safari drive.

The Samburu National Reserve is a game reserve on the banks of the Ewaso Ng'iro river in Kenya. Sporting awe inspiring, iconic acacia trees against an arid, red African soil. Samburu is home to what is referred to as the “special five” species: Grevy zebra, Somali ostrich, Reticulated giraffe, gerenuk, and the Beisa Oryx. In addition to these rare beauties, Samburu is also home to all three big cats, the lion, cheetah, and leopard. Wild dog sightings are not common but still possible. And a population of over 900 Elephants attract photographers from around the world. Last year we had backlit dust with oryx fighting, it was great fun.

Vehicles

We will use 2 stretch/modified Toyota Land Cruisers. There will be three rows of seats in each vehicle so that each person has a row to themselves. That way everyone can shoot unencumbered irrespective of what side of the vehicle the action is taking place.

The vehicles are designed so that you can shoot out of the sides or standing, out of the top. The top of the vehicles have two roof hatches which we remove at the start of each day (they rest on the top of the vehicles next to the openings such that they can put back on if it rains or if we need shade.

The side of the vehicles comprise either large roll down windows or roll up, transparent canvass sides. Again, we roll these canvass side up before we go out each day but if it rains, they can quickly be rolled down.

Included

Accommodations on shared basis, unless a single supplement is requested and is available. This trip is for 3 nights in Samburu and 6 nights in the Mara, one night in Nairobi at the start of the trip.

Wifi in our tents at the Mara.

All meals once we get to our camp.

Domestic flights with ample weight allowance for baggage.

Guaranteed row and window seat in a private 4X4 land cruiser

Park fees

Bottled drinking water in safari vehicles and rooms.

Not Included

International flights

e-Visa

Travel and Medical insurance

Personal purchases (including beverages, laundry, phone calls, etc)

Accommodations before or after the tour

Tips for drivers/guides/camp-approximately $400.00 per participant.

TO SIGN UP CLICK HERE.

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Deposit Information: A non-refundable deposit of $2,000 due now to hold your spot. Final payments are due January 15, 2024 via check or wire transfer only, fees on both ends are the responsibility of the participant. Credit cards will not be accepted for any payment other than deposit. Full payments are always welcomed via check or wire transfer . All checks made payable to: Denise Ippolito LLC. Please note that I will do my very best to secure you a room mate; if I am unable to secure you a room mate then you will be charged for a single supplement.

Please be sure to check your calendar carefully and to check out my Workshop Policy Page.

Note: Purchasing travel insurance is strongly recommended.

Single supplements for this trip are 1300.00 limited availability. You must let me know at sign up if you want one.

*A detailed information sheet will be sent upon sign up. To be clear, this is not a birding trip though we will stop for some of the more popular birds.

Florida East Coast Bird Photography Workshop with Denise

Florida East Coast Bird Photography Workshop - March 10-15th, 2025

Join multi-award winning photographer Denise Ippolito for five days of bird photography on the Florida East Coast. There are tons of great birding spots in Florida and we will hit quite a few of them, Exact locations will of course be determined by the birds—after all they are in charge!

Daily schedule will be an early morning shoot followed by a break with informal image review and Photoshop/ Lightroom sessions as time permits, then head back out for a late afternoon shoot. A detailed file will be sent with hotel, gear and clothing recommendations.

Our target subjects include but are not limited to: Roseate spoonbills, Great egret, Osprey, Wood stork, Black skimmer, GBH, Little blue heron, American white pelican, Barred owl, Ibis, Sandhill crane, Peregrine falcon, Wood duck and so much more…

Price: $1899.00

Dates: March 10-15th, 2025

Limit 10

Daily Schedule

March 10th -. We will have a Meet & Greet at our hotel at 12:00 noon (the hotel and other pertinent information will be supplied in the additional information sheet once you sign up and we get our entire group together). Followed by an afternoon shooting session.

March 11, 12, 13, 14 - Our daily schedule will be as follows Early morning photo session followed by an informal Photoshop and image review session as time permits, break then an afternoon photo session.

March 15th- we will have a morning photo session then we will say our good byes.

Itinerary subject to change due to local conditions, weather and the birds….

Included- photography instruction, Photoshop/Lightroom and Image Review Sessions.

Not included- transportation, meals, lodging. Any entrance fees where required.

To Sign up CLICK HERE.

This workshop can easily be combined with my Charleston South Carolina workshop-March 17-22, 2025