My Photography

Me and My Stuff

It was a cloudy October morning when I hiked the one mile trail up hill to Bald Knob. When I reached the top, I took a moment to enjoy the view--after all, I'm not just there to do photography. I'm there
because I like to be there. I attached my general purpose 24-85 mm zoom lens to my Nikon D70, and mounted the camera on my Gitzo carbon-fiber tripod. It's a good strong tripod and relatively light weight. It ensures that the camera remains steady, not just while I compose the frame, but when the shutter snapping the shot.
If you look closely at the top of my camera body, you might see a
little green spot: It's my "double bubble." The double-bubble is a level (see below), which helps me make sure my camera is positioned correctly even when the horizon is slanted. I use it almost all the time for landscapes, though nowadays, many cameras provide a leveling option within the view finder itself.

With the D70, I used an infra-red remote to trigger the shutter. With the Nikon D200, D300, and most recently the D7200, I use a cable. Either way, I can snap the shutter without touching the camera, which means less vibration, and a sharper image. The primary advantage of the newer camera bodies is that I can use higher ISO settings and a relatively fast shutter speed, without sacrificing image quality.

Carol Liguori
October 2006
Here I am, photographing a landscape on top of Bald Knob at Mountain Lake in southwestern Virginia.

Photo by
Isaac Wolfe

This shows a closeup of the "double bubble," which helps make sure I align the
camera correctly, even when a level horizon is unavailable. The left shot (above) is level; the right shot is not.

A sturdy tripod is essential to making sure the camera doesn't wiggle during the
exposure. It also makes it easier to compose the shot deliberately--carefully checking the frame to make sure it's just right.

A sturdy tripod head holds the camera in place and allows the photographer to adjust the position of the camera while composing the shot. This model can hold the camera very low to the ground (see below).

Regardless of the brand or model camera used, it is essential that the camera body is securely attached to a tripod. I use an L-Bracket because it is versatile. Also some of my lenses have a "foot" that

An L-Bracket mounted on the camera body allows the photographer to position the camera horizontally, as shown here, or vertically.

Sometimes a shot requires vertical framing. With an L-Bracket, it's easy to change the position of the camera and get the shot. The lens shown here also has a "foot" for attaching to the tripod head.

This picture shows the camera attached to the tripod head using the "foot" that is part of the 200 mm lens. Most long lenses have a "foot" because it would be too unstable (front-heavy) to attach at the body.

The "foot" can spin freely around the lens, so the camera can be adjusted from vertical to horizontal without taking it off and re-mounting. This model of tripod allows the camera to be held very low to the ground.

Even Gumby and Pokey approve of this setup. This shows pretty much everything I need for getting awesome closeup photographs of wildflowers, ferns, dew drops, insects, spider webs, etc.

Here you can see the off-brand shutter release that used to use with my D200. I currently use a Nikon brand because it responds a little better and I like the grip.

For photographing small wildflowers, insects, dew drops, etc, this is the best lens for me. It's the Nikon 200 mm micro. It magnifies nicely and can focus really close.

When I need to get even closer than the 200 mm lens allows, I use this Tamron 1.4 Teleconverter. It turns a 200 mm lens into a 300 mm lens, at the cost of 1 f-stop of light.

This is how close I can get to a penny using my Nikon 200 mm micro lens.

Sometimes I need to get even closer, so I add the Tamron 1.4 teleconverter.

For this shot, I used the 200 mm lens and teleconverter, and did a little cropping, too.

In the Field

I enjoy doing photography alone, but also with family and friends.

As soon as my boys learned to walk, they began wandering around the woods with me. I got this shot of Adam with May Apples near Lansing, Michigan during May 2003.

In addition to hanging out with me in the woods, sometimes my sons help. In this shot, taken in Virginia during April 2007, Isaac holds the diffuser to show how it works. (This is a teaching slide.)

Sometimes I go on hikes with my family and drag along the tripod and camera gear. For example, I got this shot of my family on Bald Knob at Mountain Lake during May 2006.

In August 2006, I spent a week with some of my favorite photography friends, attending a Rod Planck photography tour in upper peninsula Michigan.

Here is another shot from August 2006. In addition to enjoying my friends, they help make sure I get up and into the field before sunrise so we can catch the best light of the day.

Dragging the gear around can be exhausting, but the tripod and timer allow us to get a group shot, like this one of our family and friend on hike in Kauwai, Hawaill.

Sharing, Showing, and Selling Photos

In addition to doing photography, I print photographs and cards, and I present slide-shows on topics like wildflowers and wildflower photography. I have also led small-group classes in the field.

During early August 2008, I attended "Steppin' Out" in Blacksburg, VA. It's a two day event in which vendors set up booths along the streets of downtown.

November 2010 marked my third year selling photos at the YMCA Crafts Fair in Blacksburg, VA. This three day event can be exhausting, but at least the booths are set up inside. I make prints and cards using the Epson Stylus 2200 and Stylus Pro 3880.

Here is my booth at the Annunal Wildflower Pilgrimage during April 2011. This was my third year as a vendor at this event, however I have been presenting slide shows on wildflowers and wildflower photography for several years.

How it Began

I have been photographing wildflowers since the late 1980s, back when I began my graduate research in ecology at the University of Iowa. I had decided to study wildflower pollination in the springtime forests of eastern Iowa under the direction of my advisor, Henry F. Howe. I’d been a chemist prior to taking on this task, and I knew next to nothing about wildflowers. So I started out with Newcomb’s Wildflower Guide, a notebook, and my $99 Cosina SLR camera with one zoom lens. The book helped me identify the species, while my notes and snapshots helped me remember what I’d learned.

As time went by, I began feel more and more disappointed with the quality of my photographs. Sure, I could identify the plants (most of the time), but the pictures were often blurry, improperly exposed, and rather clinical. I got some screw-on close-up lenses that helped me do a better job of filling the frame with my subject, but the clarity of the images was poor. Around this time, I also began to think more about the background and how to make it less distracting, and where to place the subject within my frame. My shots remained clinical but at least they had improved.

Here I am, a graduate student in ecology, during the spring of 1987 in an eastern Iowa forest, preparing to use a fisheye lens to get a snapshot of the "wildflower's perspective" of the sky.

After a few years, I bought a second-hand Canon AE-1 and a few lenses to go with it. Most importantly, I bought a set of Canon macro lenses (a 50 mm lens with an extension tube adaptor to convert it to a 100 mm lens). With this combination, I could shoot “life size,” which means that the image on the 35mm film could be the exact same size as the object I was photographing. And the clarity was very good. For wildflowers that are as small as clovers and violets, this was extremely helpful. Macro was the way to go.

And then during the summer of 1996, on a trip to Colorado, I stopped by a camera shop in Colorado Springs and bought a used Sigma 200 mm macro lens for my Canon AE-1. By moving to a longer focal length lens, I increased my “working distance,” and was better able to isolate my subject from the background behind it. My very first shot of a coneflower convinced me that I had found the lens for me. At least for now.

Purple Coneflower, August 1996

Here is the very first photograph I got using my new "second-hand" Sigma 200 mm macro lens. The lens was attached to my Canon AE-1 and I shot with Agfa 50 ISO film. I was using a very basic Bogen tripod and tripod head.

Eventually, I decided to switch to a Nikon system for a few different reasons. First, I'd always wanted to shoot Nikon. But more importantly, I had recently learned about the Nikon 200 mm “micro” lens, which was one of the best lenses I could buy for close-up work. So toward the end of 1998, I got the Nikon N-80, one of the medium-low end Nikon SLR film cameras, along with a couple zoom lenses (24-85 mm, and 70-300 mm). A few months later, I got the 200 mm micro. About a year after that, I got the Nikon 85 mm tilt-shift. I still use all four of those lenses now. I have since switched to digital bodies, starting with a Nikon D70 in the fall of 2004 and then D200 a few years later and D300 a few years after that. Around the time I switched to a Nikon camera body, I also went from a Bogen tripod to Gitzo. The Gitzo G1235 lacks a center post and its legs can be adjusted independently for working in all kinds of terrain and for getting very close to the ground (see pictures above). My first Gitzo was aluminum but a few years later I got one made with carbon fiber. Carbon fiber is more expensive than aluminum, but it's lighter weight and less likely to "freeze" my hands in the winter or "burn" my hand on a sunny, hot summer day. On a five mile walk to the top of Mt. LeConte on a wintery day in November, it's worth the extra money to carry less weight and not have my hands get stuck to a frozen tripod!

For most of my life, I had done photography alone, reading books and fumbling around on my own to figure out how to get better photographs. But in August 2002, I attended my first Rod Planck photography workshop (in Paradise, Michigan), and it was the first of many Rod Planck workshops and tours I have attended during the past decade. I have benefited not only from Rod's expertise, but I have traveled to places I probably never would have gone on my own (like Utah, the Badlands, and upper peninsula Michigan), and I have met photographer friends, learned a lot about photography, and had lots of adventure and lots of fun.

Ant Lion Hole, August 2002

Not everyone shares my enthusiasm for "strange" yet interesting things. I photographed this Ant Lion hole during my first Rod Planck worshop in a forest near Paradise, Michigan.