During the early part of November, Hurricane Ida disrupted a preplanned Moose Peterson/Adorama/Nikon bird photo shoot in NJ’s Jamaica Bay. So the word went out that the planners (Monica R. Cipnic, Program Director Workshops@Adorama) were setting up a one day NYC urban shoot at the Brooklyn Bridge and thru D.U.M.B.O area. Additionally, Moose spiced up the event by announcing free passage to one of his workshops for the best image of the day. I gave Adorama a call., made quick hotel and rail arrangments and my prepacked gear and I were on our way for a Thursday night wildlife presentation at Adorama’s AV room to be followed the next day with the photo shoot.
This all occurred in the span of a few hours. Why the Draw?
This is Moose Peterson we are talking about. I have been viewing his blogs, for many many months, watched his podcasts, seen his training videos over at Kelbytraining. He is a straight shooter, wildlife photographer who brings new meaning to the word PRO. My passion to learn more from Moose, was not satiated even after an intense five day workshop held just one week prior at the Maine Media Workshop. I could not wait to attend this urban journey with him and a small band of fellow shooters and Nikon reps.
On Thursday evening, Moose’s presentation on wildlife was amazing. Moose is a great story teller, has many years of stories to tell, remembers fine details of his shots, and can’t wait to tell you about them and his thinking and the process for taking a specific image. Additionally, not many people know that Moose is first and foremost a wildlife photographer with a passion for working with biologists on capturing images of endangered species. He has cataloged at least six species that have disappeared from the face of the earth and works tireless in the background (?) to limit that from reoccurring. He does not preach at you, his images spark your thoughts about the recklessness of man on the environment regarding these species that live low in the food chain in mico- ecosystems.
The small wings of butterflies, or tiny feet of these mammals are never ever to be seen again, except thru these images that Moose was able to capture. These ‘critters’ are not the large well known species, but the small and readily forgotten about. It is amazing to me that in this day and age of chasing the almighty dollar, that someone with such a skill set as Moose has, can give back with such zeal and passion to this part of wildlife community when there is no financial reward at the end. And it’s not about personal reward or personal recognition, he just cares…….
At the end of the presentation, Moose’s slideshow went into automatic, where he sculpted an obscure Coldplay sound track around a lifetime of IMAGES that was thrilling to see. I better understood what was being presented having spent a week being trained by him in Maine, but now to see his work in such a wonderful AV center, one could see the creative and technical side; Very, very shallow DOF, with high isolation and sharp crisp subjects with backgrounds that balanced and enhanced the color or attitude of the ‘critter’, with your eye following the light in each IMAGE subconsciously guided by artful predetermination in the digital darkroom by a master craftsman. Moose has his hands in a lot of projects, but his heart is on the shutter button.
The next morning, our staging point was at 7:30 AM at Pace University Plaza on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn bridge. I always try to get up and arrive a half hour before any event/shoot, just like I did during my basketball years, ya know, get to practice early, get into the mind set of practicing, warm up,ect….It wan’t long before Moose and his wife Sharon came by and we went off for a coffee. During these few minutes, I don’t know how the subject came up, but somehow we went into a discussion about Old England and that there was a theory that Jack the Ripper had eluded Scotland yard by traveling to NYC in the early 1900′s. So with that bit of triva floating in my head, we found our first photo stop for the day at the NYC Chamber Street Subway Station…Good God….M.C.Escher must have designed the ceiling, just amazing…so I got to thinking after a few minutes, what if Jack the Ripper and M.C.Escher had met at the Chamber Street station and an illustration needed to be captured for a article, newspaper or book……..this is what I came up with…..
FritzImages
I had a great day, taking a lot of images, while walking, talking and learning with a group of friendly photographers. The Nikon guys were there with the new glass, including the unreleased 70-200mm VII and other lenses to assist us. Moose spent the day with his new D3s, exploring all the new avenues the camera made available to him. (ISO 100 – 102,400) clean and noiseless. Jeff Snyder was our friendly host from Adorama and he kept himself busy with two cameras and talking shop with everyone. Sharon is a real trooper and was tasked (I think) to keep me from trailing to far behind the group, you see it was a great thrill to see all these NYC people and movements that one could get lost it not teathered to reality…….In any event, the day ended very quickly, over 40gb’s of images and a long trip back to upstate NY.
Keep an eye out over at the Adorama Web site for images of the days shooting and the results of the photo contest. They were recently calling for images from the shoot and should be posted shortly. Other images from my days shoot can be viewed at FritzImages, under Adorama Shoot.
Your photos are awesome. Merry Christmas.