Editor’s note: This interview is the fifth in a series highlighting professionals at work in the Chesapeake Bay arena. Listen to the full interviews in our Chesapeake Uncharted podcast.

For Jay Fleming, a body of water is his body of work.

Over the past decade and a half, the Annapolis native has devoted himself to visually documenting the Chesapeake Bay. His Nikon camera freezes in time indelible images of life on and underneath the water: sea-cured men dredging for oysters, blue crabs bobbing, wading birds wading and skipjacks casting rippling reflections in the tide.

Along the way, Fleming, 36, has established himself as one of the region’s top nature photographers. He has compiled his photographs into a pair of books: Working the Water (2016) and Island Life (2021). His work has also been seen on display at gallery exhibits and gracing the walls of countless businesses and homes.

His mother is an official with the Maryland Department of Natural resources, and his father is a former National Geographic staff photographer. It might seem like he was practically born into the business, but his initial path was circuitous.

Fleming graduated from St. Mary’s College in Southern Maryland with a degree in economics. After stints with the Maryland DNR and the National Park Service at Yellowstone, he found his calling as a photographer for Maryland’s seafood marketing program. Within a few years, he left that job to concentrate on his own photography full time.

In addition to selling his prints, he shoots assignments for glossy magazines and leads photography workshops on the Bay and around the world.

“Every time I’m out on the water and I can watch the sun come up, I consider myself fortunate,” he said. “When I’m out on the water on a Monday and I think about all the people I know who have to sit in an office, I know that I picked the right path for myself.”

The Bay Journal caught up with Fleming during a rare moment on land at his office and gallery on Maryland’s Kent Island. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Question: How did you end up pursuing the Bay as the subject of your art?

Answer: I grew up in a photography family. My dad [Kevin Fleming] was a photographer. He basically shot for about 50 years, and he worked for National Geographic. My dad was over in Delaware, and we would always go out shooting together. And it got to a point where we got really competitive when I was, like, 15 years old.

Sometimes, I was actually shooting better pictures than him, which bothered him. But we still enjoyed it. At a certain point, I realized I needed to find my own territory. I had grown up on the Bay fishing and crabbing, kayaking, all that, so that’s when I kind of took a deep dive into what was going on in the Bay.

Q: Did you ever take any formal photography classes?

A: Nope. I took AP studio art in high school. But other than that, no formal training — just learning on my own and learning by mistake.

Q: You’ve been successful working your way into the waterman culture. How were you able to win that trust?

A: What I do is an incredibly valuable marketing tool for the seafood industry. It’s bridging the gap between the seafood harvesters, the seafood processors and then the consumer. So, it’s educating people as to where the product is coming from, the process by which it’s being brought to shore and the people who are involved with it.

Q: So, you call up a waterman and say, “Hey, can I hop on your boat with you at 5 a.m.?”

A: Pretty much, yeah. There’s a little more to it than that. But finding the right boat to go out with involves finding the people who are following the [regulatory and legal] rules because people who aren’t following the rules — they’re not going to want to be photographed.

Q: Tell me about your first book, Working the Water.

A: That idea of documenting the whole seafood industry was really inspired by a couple of people. Art Daniels, who was a skipjack captain on Deal Island, was the first one who led me out to shoot pictures on a workboat. I went out dredging with him in the winter. I connected with him through his grandson, Lee Daniels, who works for the state now. I got to see that whole process, and I really became interested in seeing more of it.

Q: The number of watermen on the Bay continues to dwindle. Sea level rise threatens many remaining islands. Does that drive you, this idea that “if I don’t do this now, it may be lost to history”?

A: Absolutely. That was how I felt about my [second] book, Island Life, even more. Smith Island and Tangier Island [the Bay’s last inhabited offshore islands] have changed a lot since I started working on that book in 2010. I shot a picture of the last house on Holland Island about six months before it went into the water [in 2010]. That picture’s become somewhat of a historical piece because it was, like, the last time anybody went out there and really documented that house before it was completely gone.

Q: It gives you an appreciation for what the future might be.

A: I saw Holland Island foreshadowing what could happen to Smith Island and Tangier Island. A lot of other islands in the Bay have disappeared or are disappearing, so it’s not a new phenomenon. But the idea of having these active communities with a working seafood economy still happening on them going away within our lifetimes is pretty scary. And I knew that I needed to document that.

Q: Is there anything we can do to help these communities?

A: Buy local seafood and ask where your seafood is coming from. As an individual, that’s what you can do to support the seafood industry: Buy local seafood.

Q: The current Chesapeake Bay cleanup agreement expires in 2025. Do you have any advice on restoring the Bay going forward?

A: I think a lot of emphasis needs to be put on these [invasive] blue catfish. I think we spend a lot of effort and money on projects that really have no tangible deliverables. There’s nothing where we can say, “Oh, look what we’ve done.” You need some sort of suppression program, [so] you could go and say, “Look, we killed 2 million blue catfish.”

Listen to the full interview at bayjournal.com/podcasts.

Follow Moderator, BoredPanda staff

Hey there, Pandas! My name is Diana (though some prefer to refer to me as Diane, Deanna, and even Liana sometimes), and I am a Community Post Moderator Lead for Bored Panda.

As my position title states, I am one of the people (employed Pandas for bamboo) over here who work with the community side of things on this website to ensure all is well, and while at that, I also help various creators and artists get recognition for the incredible work they do by connecting them to a large worldwide audience.

Other than that, outside of work, you can find me brewing a nice cup of coffee, making a pizza from scratch, or baking brownies. I also love traveling, concerts, and cats (heavy on that, because I am a cat mom).

Read more »

Delhi: Oppo India has announced the imagine IF Photography Awards in the country. The initiative—with Director and Screenwriter, SS Rajamouli as its Indian ambassador—is aimed to spark creativity in mobile photography. 

Oppo launched the imagine IF Photography Awards globally in 2023. The inaugural edition of the Awards witnessed over 7,00,000 entries from 51 countries. This is the second year for imagine IF, and its first foray into India.
 
“As an artist, I’ve always believed in pushing the boundaries of creativity, exploring uncharted territories, and inspiring others to do the same,” Rajamouli said. “The OPPO imagine IF India Photography Awards 2024 represents a bold step towards celebrating innovation and imagination in mobile photography, and I am thrilled to be a part of this initiative. Let’s capture the extraordinary, let’s imagine the impossible, and let’s create a legacy of inspiration for generations to come.”

The competition, open to all Indian citizens over 18 years, features nine entry categories—Landscape, Portrait, Colours, Unfading Moment, Fashion, Snapshot, Light, Travel, and Collection—and will be judged by a panel of photographers: Celebrity Wedding and Portrait photographer and Oppo Imaging Expert Joseph Radhik, Wildlife photographer Arzoo Khurana, Fashion photographer Arjun Mark, and other global juries. 

Sushant Vashistha, Head of Digital Marketing, Oppo India, said, “Oppo India is proud to bring the Imagine IF Photography Awards to the country, providing a platform to showcase the incredible talent of Indian photographers. As the sole smartphone brand featured in Paris Photo 2023, Oppo showcased a collection of outstanding images, including those by renowned photographers and winning entries from the 2023 Oppo Imagine IF Photography Awards. This year, we can’t wait to see some incredible photographs from India being showcased on the global stage.”

Participants can share their smartphone photographs for ‘Round 1’ until June 15, 2024 (Midnight IST). From these, 50 winners—announced in the last week of June—will proceed to Round 2. This second phase will commence in early July, and the final six winners will be announced on July 25, 2024. 

From the top winners, the Gold winner will be awarded a cash prize of INR 5,00,000, two Silver winners will win INR 2,00,000, three Bronze winners will win INR 1,00,000. All five winners will get the opportunity to attend the Paris Show and the latest Oppo phone, besides getting an opportunity to collaborate with Oppo India for the photography led projects.

The awards were announced on the sidelines of the Oppo Ambassador Conclave in Mumbai that commenced with the unveiling of the OPPO Find X7 Ultra. 

Industry leaders, influencers, and Oppo Ambassadors, including Rajeev Masand, COO, Dharma Cornerstone; Anubhav Sinha, Director; Sudeep Chatterjee, DOP, Monaz Todywalla, CEO, PHD Media India; and Raj Kamble, COO, Famous, led discussions on the evolution of smartphone photography, AI advancements, and the rise of content creators. 

The third edition of the Flotsam surf film and photography festival kicks off on the Gold Coast tomorrow.

The celebration was born out of a desire to showcase the creative side of the surf industry which took a big hit during the Covid-19 pandemic as border controls and rules on how much time you could spend outside left photographers and filmmakers severely restricted.

Over the next 12 days the non-for-profit association will be hosting an eclectic mix of pop up short film installations, photography exhibitions, movie screenings, workshops and photo meets. Each of these offerings will feature work from some of the biggest photographers in the industry.

One of the biggest event being held across the 12 days is the Flotsam International Masters of Surf Launch which is being dubbed as “arguably the largest exhibition of leading surf photographers ever assembled”. The showcase has been curated by lens man Ted Grambeau and features a single image chosen by over 30 photographers including Andrew Shield, Christa Funk, Corey Wilson, Jason Childs, Todd Glaser and more.

The exhibition will be held on 3 May and includes a cocktail lunch at the Kirra Beach House. Every photo will go under the hammer and the proceeds will be donated to each photographer’s chosen beneficiary.

On 5 May the “Surf Girls” exhibition will feature a number of women’s surfing films and shorts. It will be shown at the Tugun Village Community Centre. Ecuadorian born, Australian-raised surfer Pacha Light will be on hand, alongside filmmakers Lucy Small and Maddie Meddings to share behind-the-scenes stories from the films which aim to show the evolution of women’s surfing.

The third stop of the Tracks Party tour has also been included as part of the festival. On 10 May surf punk band Goons of Doom and genre-bending act DJ Eddy will take to the Coolangatta Hotel for a night of partying, dancing and all round carnage.

To learn more about the festival and purchase tickets for the various offerings, click here.

AMMAN — After publishing “A Map and a Lens: Jordan Sights Unseen and Stories Untold”, “Unique and Outstanding” and “The Noble Sanctuary”, the Jordanian photographer Bashar Tabbah continues his mission to explore historical sites with his camera. This time, he explored the rich Jordanian cultural heritage and landscape from a helicopter with a group of scholars specialised in aerial archaeology.

Michael Sanchez was setting up his new camera to capture a waterfall at Oregon’s Hug Point at sunrise when he spotted a little bird hopping around. He snapped a few photos, and didn’t think much more of it.

A week later, those snapshots have made him the star – and the envy – of the local birding community. Sanchez, who is from Vancouver, Washington, may have inadvertently captured the first images of an extremely rare blue rock-thrush in North America.

The species, which is native to east Asia, has only once before been spotted in this region, in 1997. But that sighting was rejected by the American Birding Association. If Sanchez’s images are verified by local and national birding groups, he could be credited as the first person to successfully record a blue rock-thrush in the region.

“I was very very surprised to see just how stirred up this got folks,” he said. “It’s mind-blowing.”

Sanchez, a middle school band director and musician who very recently took up photography as a hobby, had never considered himself much of a birder. But as he was reviewing his photos from his trip to the coast, it struck him that the cute bird he saw was unusual – he’d never seen anything like it before. “So I thought, I’ve got to post it on the socials, right?” Not long after, a friend of a friend – an avid birder – reached out. From its unique blue and chestnut plumage, the bird looked distinctively like a male blue rock-thrush. It turned out, Sanchez may have set a birding record.

“A lot of times when something like this happens, there’s a lot of effort among the birding community to try and verify it, because everyone wants to go and see it for themselves,” said Brodie Cass Talbott, of the Bird Alliance of Oregon and the Oregon Birding Association.

Volunteer experts have been working with Sanchez to verify the image and confirm its location. No other local birders have been able to spot the bird since Sanchez photographed it – but oddly, there was another blue rock-thrush sighting four days later, at the Farallon Islands off the San Francisco coast.

It’s unclear whether this was the same bird or another bird. As Sanchez’s photos made rounds in online birding groups, another person reported seeing what may have been the same blue rock-thrush in January, but was not able to take a photo.

It is doubly uncertain how this bird even made it so far from its home, to North America. “Maybe this bird individually just has faulty navigation,” said Cass Talbot. It may have gotten lost, and then trapped in a strong wind system. Or it may have hitched a ride on a ship.

Usually, when ultra-rare, non-endemic bird species turn up on the west coast, they tend to be seabirds, spotted far off shore. “That’s part of why it’s been such a big story here, and people have been so excited about it,” he said. “It’s just sort of mind-bending.”

The implausible sighting has been a reminder of how unexpected and fascinating birding can be, Cass Talbot added. “It’s always neat for us to see how big the world is and how incredible these creatures are.”

Sanchez agrees. He wasn’t a birder before, but “this really has opened my eyes,” he said.

“I guess I’m a birder at this point,” Sanchez said. “I think I’m in the club.”