Cold Duck Photography For A Maine Winter’s Day

     Why am I so happy to live in Maine in the winter? Could it be that I'm eager to go after the harlequin ducks I've been working along the York County coast? Or the Maine bald eagles I plan to work along open stretches of our frozen rivers? Or maybe the snowshoe hares I hope to catch with their white winter coats in the winter wonderland of Baxter State Park?

     While warm places like Florida have their virtues, there's just something about Maine in the winter that entices the camera hunter. And while Maine's frozen landscape often presents logistical challenges, there's also something special about bagging a great shot despite the elements. The challenge of making a great photograph in winter may be the ultimate experience for the Maine camera hunter.

     Making a great photograph anywhere in the world is not quite as easy as the camera manufacturers would have you believe. To be sure, anyone can get good results most of the time with a modern, auto-everything camera. You really do just need to point and shoot to record an image on film with most of today's cameras.

     The recording of light is the very essence of photography. The word photograph is the combination of two words from classic language that together mean "to write with light". Without getting into the science of it all, let's also note that invisible forms of radiant energy will also expose the light sensitive emulsions that we call film.

     The radiant energy that the camera hunter is most often concerned with comes from the sun. The light of day is what most of my outdoor images are made with, how about you? I rarely use flash outdoors. I am experimenting with one of the new "smart" flash units for fill flash, but that's a subject for another column. 

     The daylight we record is usually reflected off of some natural setting and hopefully from some animal, through the lens and onto the film. Sometimes we also record light directly from the source itself, as in a sunset image.

     The real quest for the camera hunter is the pursuit of wildlife in great light. To capture a subject in truly great light and properly expose for that light while framing the subject for an artful result is what takes wildlife photography far beyond the mere "recording of light".

     While I usually think of it as truly great light, some call it artist's light, golden light or sweet light. No matter what you call it, on any given clear day there's a chance for that light at least twice: from sunrise into the early morning and again from late afternoon to sunset.

     Some cloudy days also offer a chance for truly great light, when the sun squeezes through an opening and forms what some have called "God beams". Find a target lit by one of those beams and you can make some truly great pictures.

     While our climate is not as warm as Florida's, we do get our own share of truly great light, even during the winter. A look at an annual record of sunny days will confirm that for any who doubt it.

     The mallard ducks in two of the accompanying images were frequenting the partially frozen Penobscot River near the boat ramp across from Indian Island in Old Town (Delorme's The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer Map 33, E-4) because folks from the area were feeding them. I'd noticed them earlier in the day when I'd passed through searching for bald eagles working the open waters at the dams downstream.

     These birds, as they so often are, were easy to get close to because they were getting a handout.  The trick was to catch them in the in the right light.

     So I came back in late afternoon and set my camera and a short telephoto lens up on a tripod at the shoreline. After carefully setting the camera exposure by metering off an average reflectance gray card so that the camera's meter would not be fooled by the brighter water, I fired off two rolls of film as the ducks arranged themselves in a variety of poses.

     Catch yours in the good light.