Book Review: The View from Lazy Point, by Carl Safina

Montauk Lighthouse - a mere stone's throw from Lazy Point

The View from Lazy Point: A Natural Year in an Unnatural World is Carl Safina's latest book which I recently received in the mail.  While I've known of Dr. Safina for some time (he is the President and Co-Founder of the Blue Ocean Institute) and had the privilege of listening to some of his guest lectures while I was a student at SUNY Stony Brook University, The View from Lazy Point made me feel like I have met him many times before.  Dr. Safina's inviting prose and carefree candor lets the reader experience the far flung trips and lazy local fishing jaunts with ease.  This book reads like an in-depth, year long journal, following the author as he struggles to grasp the perils of this unnatural world and balance them with the familiarities of his aptly named home.

A dovekie - the Penguin of the North

In today's scientific and ecological world, it's easy to be overwhelmed by the bad - the scary end-of-the-world scenarios that Al Gore and the like brought into our living rooms.  How does one escape the ill effects of the never ending CO2 smokestack, the bleached white coral reefs of the Caribbean or the melted glaciers of our polar regions?  Even the most optimistic scientist struggles with this task, but Dr. Safina makes it a point to see the natural good left in the world and appreciate it.  He may not stop to smell the roses - but he does pause to pursue the bass and bluefish that remain abundant in his backyard.  While each new month in this book brings with it a reminder of what has been lost, it also brings reminders of what remains, or in those rare instances, what has come back.

An Endangered Roseate Tern forages on Long Island

Thanks to the dedication of a former federal biologist (Rachel Carlson and her 1962 book Silent Spring) and the non-profit environmental advocacy group the Environmental Defense Fund (founded on Long Island by the likes of former SUNY Stony Brook professor Charles Wurster and former BNL Scientist Dennis Puleston) birds like the Osprey and Peregrine Falcon got a second lease on life and are now common visitors to Lazy Point and the rest of Long Island.  Even after a long and cold trip to Antartica, where Dr. Safina sees first hand the raw chain reaction effects of climate change, he can return home and witness the abundance nature continues to offer, like harbor seals loafing yards from his bedroom window.  The Ruddy Turnstone - that small and unmistakable multi-colored shorebird - is a metaphor throughout the book.  It seems to follow the author nearly wherever he goes and suggests that while things are bad, not all is lost.  There is hope.  Things can change.  Beauty and natural wonder, they surround us.

A Ruddy Turnstone during migration

The View from Lazy Point is an eye opening adventure and scientific endeavor.  By book's end, the title takes on a literal meaning.  The View is not simply the picture that mother nature paints outside Dr. Safina's beachfront cottage.  The entire world truly can be seen from Lazy Point - every link in the food chain - every side effect of man kind's gluttonous and wanton ways.  The author analyzes the ravenous desires of man and points out the political and economic hurdles that pit us against a natural world in harmony.  This book is not to be speed read to discover the ending - for there is no "ending" to the problems that face us.  It is a glimpse in time, a mere fraction of a second on planet Earth's clock that shows us where we are and how we got here.  Dr. Safina does not have every answer for every problem facing us - but he gives us guidelines to right the ship before we discard our miraculous gifts like so many others we have swept under the proverbial carpet.  If we stop being selfish, stop justifying our wasteful ways because we are the "Have's" and therefore can exploit the shares of the "Have Not's" - then we can get back on the proper heading.  The modern world is used to throwing the used and spent in the garbage - but there is no landfill to toss nature into - only a cold and dark grave.  Writes Dr. Safina, "To advance compassion and yet survive in a world of appetites - that is our challenge".

Please click on the image below to purchase this book from Amazon.com.  It is easily the most thought provoking environmental book I've had the pleasure to read and it will both entertain you and influence how you see the world.  And if you're living on the Island, a trip to Montauk is in order once you have finished this journey.

Book Review: The Ultimate Guide to Digital Nature Photography

I previously reviewed National Geographic's: The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography which is a wonderful publication that illustrates the ins and outs of photography, I wanted to take the time to review a book that is much more specific to Nature Photography which is where my passion lies. So I pulled out my copy of The Ultimate Guide to Digital Nature Photography which was put together by the Mountain Trail Photo Team. While you may have never heard of the "Mountain Trail Photo Team" if you are a lover of fine art nature and wildlife photography you almost certainly have seen their work. The team consists of a 10 professional photogs, including the very skilled Ian Plant and one of my favorite landscape photographers, Marc Adamus and is a modern day photographic version of the Rat Pack. They combined their skills, knowledge and experience into an amazingly helpful guide to Nature Photography.

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Book Review: The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography

 

Since I don't have any new images to post I'll do another book review from the stack I have sitting next to my desk.  I received the book National Geographic: The Ultimate Field Guide to Photography as a Christmas gift a few years ago when I was just starting out and rather unfamiliar with photography and it was a bear to try and decipher all of the new lingo through wikipedia and photography websites.  I was lost and frustrated - a bad combination when at the same time you are so anxious to go out and produce fine images.  Being that the book comes from Nat Geo you can be sure that the quality of images and advice you get is top notch - the book takes you from buying your camera to digital corrections and how to get creative with things like panoramic shots and compilations.  This particular version is a little outdated and as such if you are interested you should go for the revised version which can be found here: National Geographic Ultimate Field Guide to Photography: Revised and Expanded (Photography Field Guides).

This book gives a solid overview of how to consistently produce good images by following the "rule of thirds" learning proper exposure, selecting the correct aperture (or f-stop) and understanding the feedback your camera gives you (with histograms for example).  For me, being the new owner of a DSLR at the time, I was easily confused by all of the lenses available and the numbers associated with them (their f-stops and mm ranges).  I was under the impression that if 200mm brought my subject a lot closer than 55mm did, then a 300mm lens would be a huge improvement.  Well, for anyone who has used a 70-300mm lens for example knows that there is a small difference between 200mm and 300mm.  This book explained the different size and types of lenses (fish eye, wide angle, macro, zoom, telephoto, super zoom etc.)

What makes this book most helpful from a photographers point of view is that the main points of the book are illustrated beautifully with photos from Nat Geo photographers.  So when the book discusses wide-angle lenses, there is a photo taken with an extreme wide angle lens to get the point across.  There also are diagrams explaining different aspects of photography in detail - like the excellent section on aperture and "controlling light".  After read this section and studying the diagram, I was 100% confident in knowing how your aperture affects the amount of light that hits the sensor (and subsequently, your shutter speed).  In the section of the book that covers flash photography - a handful of images are presented to demonstrate how flash can effectively (and not so effectively) be used.

Another cool thing about this book is that it is written by a number of different photographers.  While the basic stuff is pretty cut and dry for professionals of this level, it's the creative sections of the chapters that let the authors transfer their photographic skills into words.  While one author writes a section on making an image tell a story (something that a photojournalist certainly would have experience in) another writes about how to use a remote camera setup (which a wildlife photographer would find very useful).  There is no generic feel with this book that you may get from other instructional titles - and the images are all gorgeous unlike other books that rely on cheapo stock images to fill their pages.

While there is a lot of good in this book - there are a few flaws (which may have been addressed in the updated version, I cannot speak to that).  The book covers a lot which can be a little overwhelming for a nubile shutterbug (though it is called the ULTIMATE field guide, so what should one expect?).  The section of film is a waste - we are well into the digital age and if you want to shoot film you need to buy some old books that really let you learn about it - not read 1 chapter that skims the basics.  The same can be said for the section on scanning for the most part.  While there may be some readers who are interested in scanning their original slides that is probably a true minority and this book would be better without it.  Some of the advice can be a little hokey (like the section on making your photos into cupcakes and cookies - yes, that's actually a section in the book) for a field guide that is supposed to take amateurs to the next level.

So, if you have been interested in photography for awhile but feel like you can't makes heads or tails when it comes to understanding ISO, aperture, lenses, focal length and shutter speeds and you want a comprehensive book to lay it all out for you this is an excellent title.  The authors are tried and true professionals and the pictures are nothing short of top-notch.  For the price, this book is a must.  If you are a more advanced shooter and consistently shoot your DSLR in Aperture Priority you're best saving your money for another title.  Click the link below to check out the newer version of the book - you won't regret adding this to your bookshelf.

 

Book Review: A Supremely Bad Idea

 

Magnificent Frigatebirds circle above 'Bird Island' in El Salvador

In my efforts to expand the reach of this blog to more people, I've started to do some book reviews for nature and photography related titles.  The first unofficial review was for John Turner's latest book Exploring the Other Island: A seasonal guide to nature on Long Island which features a dozen of my images and is an excellent alternative field guide to Long Island an essentially New England and New Jersey (that review can be found here: Exploring the Other Island.  This post will focus on the wildly entertaining book by Luke Dempsey entitled A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See It All.  In an interesting twist, John Turner's book has several photographs from NY's own Lloyd Spitalnik who is also an acquaintance of Luke Dempsey and is mentioned in A Supremely Bad Idea.  The birding world is a small one!

I bought this book prior to my summer visit to El Salvador and Guatemala - figuring there would be a good amount of down time that would allow me to relax and read.  To be honest, I'm not much of a reader and it's rare that I buy a book - even more so that I buy a book about birds but when I skimmed through A Supremely Bad Idea at the store I saw that Mr. Dempsey was NY based and I guess I subconsciously enjoy supporting other artists named Luke.  The book focuses on Mr. Dempsey's entry into the birding world and his subsequent whirlwind tours of the hottest birding spots in the Country with a married couple who are wholly responsible for getting him addicted to birding.  The couple is from the NY area but assume rather amusing pseudonyms in the book to protect their identities.  The authors ability to mix humor, real life, travel and birds together is truly impressive.  I caught myself laughing out loud throughout the book but to be sure there are a few moments that will tug on your heart strings.  For Mr. Dempsey, birding becomes an escape from his exceedingly stressful life.  While it kills him to not have control over his personal life, he relishes in not being able to control the natural world in pursuit of the rarest birds North America has to offer (though he does an excellent job of masking this with splashes of profanity and plenty of British humor).

Nikon D300s 18-200mm VR @ 200mm f/5.6, 1/1600s, -.33 EC, ISO 320, El Salvador

One of the things I enjoyed most was the picture that he paints with his descriptions from his birding adventures.  This certainly was amplified by the fact that I read the majority of this book on a hammock a stone's throw from a major roost for Magnificent Frigatebirds and Brown Pelicans.  Reading about his experiences, then looking up to the sky to see thousands of these birds circling overhead was a really cool experience that enhanced the literature.  In the middle of the book are several pages of pictures taking during the author's jaunts around the country.  While the quality may not rival mine (how could it?) they add to the personal flavor this book has.

For anyone looking for a good book, a good laugh, or an interesting read about birding and birders, you absolutely must purchase this book.  I hope one day to have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Dempsey and thanking him for writing such a wonderful book.  Perhaps I will be fortunate enough to run into him in the field while photographing some exceedingly rare bird - how fitting would that be?  For those interested - click the link below to check it out on Amazon.com