Author Archives: Vincent Mistretta

About Vincent Mistretta

Photographer and wild nature enthusiast that enjoys sharing visual stories about our wonderful planet.

Make Lemonade

Moose in Baxter State Park

Last week was an important week for me. As many of you know I have been working hard on my photography over the last 2 years. My friends and family will tell you that my work ethic in most things I put my mind to is second to few others. So I have been working the last several months with a mentor, Moose Peterson. I pursued Moose as my mentor (I think he wanted to have little to do with me at first!) for several reasons. Most importantly because he has dedicated his life to using photography as a communication medium in a way few others have, by speaking on behalf of wildlife. The message he communicates is one of compassion and awareness for the wild heritage that is all around us but rarely appreciated.

The message he communicates best however is the love affair he has with his craft. That message shines through with every press of the shutter he takes. There is no better way of proving this to you but to tell you to look over his website and read his new book, Captured.

The reason last week was so important is that my mentorship with Moose is coming to an end and I wanted to impress him with where my photographic skills have evolved. Doing so was important to me partly out of pride and partly because he has become like an older brother. Moose balances constructive criticism with making sure I don’t get full of myself by letting me know my skills are still a work in progress. But at the conclusion of our week together and during the 9 hour drive home from Baxter State Park, I realized that the outcome of the images I had taken over the course of the week was secondary to the other lessons I have learned from Moose (I know you are all getting confused on which moose I mean!). Most importantly, that every image I take needs to be filled with passion for it to be worth the paper or memory card I used to store and display that image.

Our week culminated in Baxter State Park with the intention to photograph Moose during the rut. I have never seen a moose in person before and I had anxiously anticipated this trip. But a Nor’easter that rolled into the area seriously dented our plans. 1 of 3 days was a complete rain out and the other 2 were gently said, not very cooperative. To Moose, these events were taken in stride. His answer to my obvious disappointment and frustration was to go and do what he does well, turn lemons into lemonade. While finding moose was out of our control, making great images wasn’t.

Fall Foliage in Baxter State Park

The program I have been involved in with Moose is Master of Light Program. If you want to seriously take your photography to the next level, I strongly suggest considering this mentorship. BTW, its not for the faint of heart, its a lot of work but the rewards are worth it if you are serious about being a better photographer. And if you think being a better photographer is only about f-stops, exposure and focusing, you have a big surprise coming!

In Search of Moose

Part of my recent trip to Maine included a stop at Baxter State Park. While the Moose were elusive there was no shortage of beauty to photograph.
Baxter is a 210,000 acre park that was created by donations and contributions from a former Maine Governor, Percival Baxter. It is truly a beautiful spot and one I plan to visit again sometime next year. Hopefully I will find more moose upon my return!

Monday Musings

I was fortunate to have spent the last 8 days in Maine. I love to spend time behind my camera, especially when the subject matter is something as spectacular as fall foliage in Maine. The time is void of the hustle and bustle of everyday life, just me and my subject(s). It was on this trip that I decided I needed a new schedule for my blog. So today is a new beginning. I will be starting you all off each week with Monday Musings. This is meant to be a fun way to kick off the week on everyones worse day, Monday! The new posting schedule will be 3 times a week, as close to Monday, Wednesday and Friday as possible. Over the course of the next few weeks, the new blog schedule will be accompanied by new work in the main gallery of my website www.vincentmistretta.com
Hope you enjoy!

Road on our way to Sandy Stream Pond, Baxter StatePark, Millinocket, Maine

A Walk in the Park

The heat wave gripping New England finally broke this weekend. It was such a beautiful morning that I decided to visit a local park (Mead Park) a take a walk around the pond. I decided to bring my 200-400 with a 1.4 TC attached. Normally this would be a lot of glass to carry on a walk but I was planning on getting in tight on some Canadian Geese that live at the pond so I knew this was the right lens to bring. Was I glad with that decision!

It seems that a family of Red Tailed Hawks has made Mead Park in New Canaan their new home.

Red Tailed Hawk atop Utility Pole

It seems that a mating pair moved in over the winter and had 3 chicks this spring. The mother has been teaching the chicks how to hunt. They were actively practicing while I was there.

Red Tailed Hawk Eyeing a Squirrel

Red Tailed Hawk Portrait

It was a great morning of photography. Many unexpected subjects.

Osprey Heaven

I had the distinct pleasure to take a lot of photographs over the July 4th holiday. I spent the weekend on the eastern end of Long Island, NY. Over the last decade, local bird enthusiasts and members of the LI Audubon have erected poles with platforms for Osprey to call home. There are 5 such nesting sites that I stop by occasionally. This year there seems to be only 2 with mating pairs taking care of their young. One such nest has 3 chicks.

Feeding Time

I worked this nest for several hours each day at sunset for 4 days. The reward was an opportunity to learn a lot about the behavior of Osprey as well as a chance to practice my flight shots and panning technique.

Female Osprey landing on nest

While at one time Osprey were an endangered species, thanks to the tireless work of scientists, volunteers and enthusiasts, the species numbers are on the rise. That can clearly be witnessed by the activity at this nest.

Osprey Chick Stretching its Wings

One other behavior that I witnessed was the Osprey being harassed by a Red Winged Black Bird. I have been told that Black Birds regularly harass birds of prey but have never seen it first hand.
What a great weekend!

Osprey Being Harassed by Red Winged Black Bird

One of My Favorite Florida Locations

I love photographing in Florida. The diversity of and access to wildlife is hard to beat anywhere. I had the opportunity to visit Palm Beach County this past week. I used the time to visit one of my favorite places, Jupiter Beach Park. The park is a fantastic place to photograph at sunrise. The assortment of birds that I see regularly there are Ruddy Turnstones, Brown Pelicans, Common Terns and Least Terns. I have also occasionally photographed Osprey, Great and Snowy Egrets and Laughing Gulls at this location. Oh yeah, there are a group of regulars here that feed the pigeons each morning, so if you want pigeon pictures, this location will fill your CF card!

Ruddy Turnstone on a rock

There is a jetty to walk on which you can capture people habituated Ruddy Turnstones like the photograph above. There is also a long stretch of beach you can walk as well. That is where I shot the Ruddy Turnstone image below.

Ruddy Turnstone in Rippling Wave

In order to prepare for this trip, I looked at some past images from the park to figure out how I could improve on the images I already had in my files. As a result I came away with 2 goals for this trip. 1) Take images with cleaner backgrounds. As you can see in the first image, I went to great lengths to ensure that I captured as much of the inlet behind the bird as possible, limiting anything that would be a distraction to my subject. 2) Find some emotion and pull some heart strings with the images I took.

I think I was successful with goal number 1. The images I came away with on this trip were much better than those of the past. This is good, it means as a photographer I am improving my skills and craft. An essential trait to any business. On the second goal I was less successful. I tried to pull emotion by photographing many, and I mean many, of the Ruddy Turnstones I saw limping around the beach. Why were they limping? Their feet were tied with fishing line, an unfortunate consequence of foraging near fishermen. However I did not pull off telling that story the way I wanted. I also snapped a few pictures of an Osprey flying overhead with a fish in its talons but did not have the right light in order to bring true emotion to that image.

The closest I came to pulling emotion was this photograph of a least tern preparing to drop into the water at sunrise. At least it stirred emotion in me!

Least Tern Preparing to dive into the water

You Don’t Need Money to Take Great Pictures

People often tell me they wish they could take pictures like me. Surprisingly, I feel the same way when I see pictures from the likes of Moose Peterson, Scott Bourne, Jay Maisel or Art Morris. Take this picture for example.

Jupiter Beach

This image was taken with my iPhone and minimally touched in Ligthroom 2.
How about this one?

Jupiter Inlet Sunrise

This image was also taken with my iPhone when I was waiting for the sun to rise at Jupiter Inlet, one of my favorite bird photography locations. (I will have some bird photographs on the blog shortly).

So you see, you dont need to spend a lot of money to take great pictures. You need patience, perseverance and practice but not expensive equipment!

Has Lightroom slowed you down recently?

Some people have asked why Lightroom 2 seems to have slowed down so much after the recent software update. The answer is pretty simple. Adobe has improved their algorithms for Lightroom 3 (don’t ask when it will be released, I don’t know). They have now provided some of these features in LR2.

Here are the release notes from Adobe’s website:
– Camera Raw 5.7 includes an updated demosaic algorithm designed to provide compatibility with settings applied in Lightroom 3 beta 2.
– Lightroom 2.7 also includes the same updated demosaic algorithm. The updated demosaic algorithm will appear as a subtle shift in noise characteristics at default values.
– By default Camera Raw will display the image adjustments exactly as performed in the Lightroom 3 beta 2 develop module. However, at this time Camera Raw 5.7 is unable to support further adjustments to the following settings or tools:
Highlight Priority and Color Priority post-crop vignette
Enhanced Luminance and Color Noise Reduction
Grain effects
Process Version

So the speed issues pertain to the re-rendering of your already processed images. In other words, LR2 is reprocessing your raw images using Adobe’s new algorithms. If the individual rendering of your images drives you crazy, there is an easy fix!
Right before you go to bed tonight do the following:
1) Open LR2
2) Select all of your images in your library
3) From the Library pulldown (not module) select Previews
4) In previews select render 1:1 previews
Now go to sleep!
When you wake up in the morning the annoying delay when you navigated between images will be gone.

Whats it Like?

I know, I know. I have done a terrible job of blogging the last few weeks. I apologize. To make it up to everyone I have some cool content I have been working on. More on that in the coming weeks.

One question I received from some “wildlife photography newbies” was “whats it like to photograph wildlife”? So I thought it would be interesting to show everyone some “scenes” from 2 of my recent Florida birding shoots. Thanks to fellow photographer Ralph Liniado for providing the photographs of me (save the emails and comments, I know I have a bald spot on the back of my head)!

The first picture is of me on Pass-a-Grille Beach. Getting low gives bird photography a whole new perspective. Not to mention a wet backside. We did a lot of “scooting” that day, and it was cold!

Sunset on Pass-a-Grille Beach

The result of working the scene above lead to the following photo opportunity.

Laughing Gull, Pass-a-Grille Beach

The next picture of me was from the Brandon Harley Davidson Rookery, what a great place to take bird photographs at sunset!

Brandon Harley Davidson Rookery

This position on shore led to one of my favorite clicks from Florida.

White Ibis Prepares for Landing

Hope you enjoyed this and maybe, just maybe it gave you some motivation to get out and shoot this weekend. The weather forecast is for spectacular conditions in New England this weekend.