BirdPhotographers.Net - It Ain't Just Birds

Sometimes I lie awake at night and think about the ceaseless flow of the miracle we call Ichetucknee Springs. In my mind's eye, I often journey to the springs to relive the experience of the sacred river. The Ichetucknee has long been heralded as Florida's most pristine river. However, a recent increase in the level of nitrates in the groundwater feeding the springs has fueled the growth of noxious algae.

Early in 2006, at the invitation of the river advocacy group Save Our Suwannee, I presented a program at Lake City Community College to show in pictures and discuss the changes I've seen on the Ichetucknee in the past 20 years.

I've found few places in Florida that have inspired me like the Ichetucknee. But my days of bliss and beauty on the Ichetucknee have become an exercise in painful avoidance; a calculated effort to selectively focus on the remaining beauty of the river, eliminating the pollution.

This brings us to the photograph I've titled River of Dreams/Fireflies on the Ichetucknee, the culmination of several trips to the river in the spring of 2006.

There's Magic in the Water- First image. Image copyright: John Moran

A pulsing gush rises from the spring vent; the water ripples and boils, dances and retreats. I am mesmerized by the scene. The photograph I make on this trip is not bad, but hardly a picture that conveys what I feel in my heart. I wonder how the water would look if the sun was an hour higher in the sky, reflecting directly off the boil.

There's Magic in the Water - Second image. Image copyright: John Moran

Returning to the river a week later, I wait as a blazing sun drops into position, neatly punctuating an opening in the tree canopy. The roiling water comes alive. A million molten diamonds skitters across the scene. Sweet!

Still, I want more, a visual love letter to my River of Dreams. I want the picture to include fireflies, those bioluminescent bits of childhood wonder that I hope will bring the finishing touch to my vision.

Two weeks later I return, an hour before sunset, and spread my gear about me on the ground. I set up my camera on the tripod. Knowing that the camera will remain motionless for the next three hours, I carefully compose the scene. After sunset, I make my first picture, a long time-exposure at dusk. Cast in a new light, the water has softened, and the diamonds have morphed into silk.

Soon, night is upon me and the fireflies in the woods begin their flicker dance in the dark. I shoot my second picture; an electronic flash, suspended over the spring from a long metal boom, pierces the night, its angle of light calculated to mimic the sun and deliver diamonds, if briefly, in the dark. Many more pictures follow. I use a high-intensity flashlight to light up the trees in the background and to light up the spring.

Next to my camera, I set up a remote-controlled light-emitting contraption that I've borrowed from Jim Lloyd, a University of Florida professor emeritus of entomology. It's an artificial green-glowing flasher that mimics a receptive female firefly. I trigger the device repeatedly and I'm soon rewarded with the approach of male fireflies. In a series of 30-second exposures, the camera records the fireflies moving through the scene, their light pulses dutifully recorded at near-metronomic intervals of seven-tenths of a second. I shoot dozens of pictures of individual fireflies.

The making of "River of Dreams". Image copyright: John Moran

The stationary digital camera will allow me to composite in my computer a dozen precisely registered, long exposures into a single, finished photograph. Technology and nature, often at odds, have affirmed that they can jointly enable magic. They have also enabled me to express my vision.