“I was photographing Little Egrets in a flooded inlet when I stumbled upon this lone figure standing poised. Its gracefully preening silhouette contrasted with the dark foliage and highlighted the delicate balance between nature and the challenges it faces.

This photograph captures the resilience of the Egret navigating a changing environment. As rising sea levels transform estuaries into rias (or inlets), Little Egrets face the loss of their natural habitat, emphasizing the urgency of climate action. 

Converting the image to black and white accentuates the fragility of their existence, with the muted tones underscoring the uncertainty of their future. Little Egrets are crucial subjects for research, providing insights into avian behavior and their ability to adapt to climate change.

Their presence in urban estuaries also highlights the need for sustainable human-wildlife interactions and serves as a reminder of our responsibility to protect and restore natural ecosystems.”

Jacob J. Watson-Howland

Jacob J. Watson-Howland, known as Nature with Jacob, is a nature photographer, filmmaker, writer, and content creator. He captures the beauty of the natural world through his exceptional photography, captivating videos, weekly newsletter, and inspiring stories, with the aim of promoting a sense of well-being and connection to nature among his audience.

Tech details

Camera: Canon EOS R6

Lens: Canon EF 300mm f/2.8 OS II USM 

Aperture: f/7.1

Shutter speed: 1/1000 sec

ISO: 320

A slice of World War II history has made its way to Chandler with an exhibition spotlighting the raw and real combat photography by Private First Class Leander Zwick Jr. during the critical days following D-Day. The Chandler Museum is currently home to “After OVERLORD – The WWII Combat Photography of Leander P. Zwick Jr.,” a powerful showcase of black and white images that tell a visceral story of the war on the Normandy front.

Visitors can expect to step back in time and be able almost to touch the gritty reality of WWII as Zwick’s camera captured, through his lens, the hard-hitting scenes post-Omaha Beach. Embedded with the U.S. Army’s VII Corps, Zwick managed to document the intense Battle of Cherbourg with a Speed Graphic Camera in one hand and an M1 Carbine in the other. These remarkable photos, now archived in a museum setting, provide a stark reminder of what the Allied troops faced in the aftermath of the invasion.

The exhibit not only acknowledges the sacrifices made during the toughest days of the conflict but is also a part of the larger narrative preserved by the Chandler Museum—an institution dedicated to capturing the evolving story of its community. Admission to this sobering look at our past is free, encouraging locals and visitors alike to connect with the history on a personal level. The exhibition, which according to the museum, serves “to share our stories, store our cultural heritage, and experience Chandler as a people and place,” will run until July 14th.

With the upcoming anniversary of D-Day on June 6, this exhibition offers a timely opportunity to reflect not just on the military strategies and political outcomes but on the individual stories and the faces of the past. The “After OVERLORD” showcase promises to serve not only as a commemoration of the significant World War II event but as a grounding point to understand the complexities and the harsh realities that the troops encountered once they set foot on French soil. For more details on the exhibition and other programming, interested parties can visit the Chandler Museum.

The Chandler Museum, located at 300 S. Chandler Village Drive, operates from Tuesday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 1-5 p.m. As a beacon in the community for learning and reflection, the museum stands as a vivid reminder that history, even when it’s difficult to digest, should be preserved and honored. The exhibition, as part of their vision “to be the community’s principal resource to explore its people’s history, culture, and place in a rapidly changing world,” makes a critical connection between yesteryear’s battles and the dialogue of today.

This past week a friend loaned me his Sigma 105 mm macro lens. I had been complaining that I was hoping to find a Canon Macro lens at the last two used camera sale, but had no luck.

We started talking about Macro lenses and he asked if I had tried the Sigma 105 mm. I said no and he said he would drop off his for me to test.

According to Sigma their 105 mm macro lens offers advanced performance for close-up photography using Sigma’s proprietary OS (Optical Stabilizer) system for handheld close-up photography. It has Special Low Dispersion lenses that provide excellent correction for all types of aberration and distortion.

The manufacturers continues saying there is a floating focusing system that moves two different lens groups in the optical path to different positions to provide excellent optical performance from infinity to 1:1 Macro and there is a HSM (Hyper Sonic Motor) that ensures quiet and high-speed auto-focus as well as full-time manual focus capability.

I was looking forward to trying the lens last Monday and had walked outside on the sunny morning for some garden shots to see how well the 105 Macro focused when there was a slight breeze. As I was there I could see rain clouds moving in and, of course, happily waited with my garden for the rain.

The first rain shower only lasted for an hour or so and gave me an opportunity to rush out to photograph raindrops hanging from my gardens plants. I will say that raindrops on plants are my favourite garden subjects.

My gear for plant photography usually includes a tripod and a flash. However, this time I wanted to put this lens to the test and find out how well it grabbed focus. (I will have plenty of time to do serious macro work on the upcoming long weekend) so I selected ISO 400 with an aperture of f/4 and began my search for water droplets.

The Sigma has a wide aperture of f/2.8 but my experience is that f/2.8 is to shallow of depth-of-field for plants that might slightly move in a soft breeze. I also back up a bit more than the lenses’ closest focus. I have found that moving back gives the lens extra focusing area and I get more keepers. Even though I was using f/4 the bokeh of this lens was excellent.

I’ll mention that many photographers like 105mm for portrait photography and the Sigma 105mm lens features a rounded nine blade diaphragm that creates an attractive blur in the out of focus areas of the image. (In photography, the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image is called bokeh.)

It is fun hunting for interesting droplets of water hanging off plants and I knew there wouldn’t be much time before the breeze and more rain. I remember when most macro lenses were 50mm, so now it is great that there are longer focal lengths like the 105mm that let us photographers stand back and still get good magnification while not being forced to trample other plants when we are doing garden photography.

The garden whether just outside or door, down the street or in some convenient community location is always such a calm and interesting place to take one’s camera. And the addition of a close focusing lens opens up a new and exciting world to photograph.

Stay safe and be creative. These are my thoughts for this week. Contact me at www.enmanscamera.com or emcam@telus.net.

A series of visual conundrums awaits at Maureen Paley’s London gallery in the form of six large-scale C-type prints by Hannah Starkey. In this small and surreptitious show, Starkey destabilises the certainty of seeing and complicates the act of looking, poking at the paradoxical nature of photography.

The first image in the show is Untitled, January 2023, a riveting and complex scene that incisively describes women’s particular relationship with photography – a subject Starkey has pursued for more than 25 years. The image shows a group of young women – students at Capa College, Wakefield – each engaged in a form of looking. One subject stands on a chair to photograph another, who poses. Two other young women engage in this loop of looking – one gazes up at the subject, the other, her back to the camera, is cast as a silhouette. Behind them, through a window, we glimpse more young women – apparently happily unaware of their subjecthood.

The interplay of these layers of reflections, shadows and silhouettes – framed in turn by the invisible author, Starkey herself – raise questions about authenticity and agency, obfuscating the viewer’s gaze and the ownership of the image. Who decides who is shown, and how? Who is more real – the subject who is aware she is being photographed, or those who seem unselfconscious?

View image in fullscreen

Women have been both hyper-visible and erased throughout art history. There’s an urgency to being seen, but is there more to standing in front of a camera – or behind one? Starkey’s fascinating dialogue with the genre of portraiture evolves further in a recent work, Untitled, November 2023 . Again, the image presents a puzzle – what is reflection, what is construction, and what simply was just there? Superimposed layers capture a shop window; a curtain depicting a map of constellations floats ethereally in the foreground – the photograph was taken in front of the glass. Lightbulbs dart like fireworks and dangle like celestial orbs; the city skyline casts an inky imprint. In the bottom right a woman (an employee at the shop) stands in front of a cardboard moon – the only prop Starkey added to the image.

It’s a beautiful thing to look at, contemplative and cosmic. Starkey sculpts with sight, adding texture and infusing emotion into the ordinary. As a metaphor, it speaks to how puny humanity is when set against the vastness of the skies and stars, how immutable the condition of our mortality is. This isn’t a portrait of one woman, it’s a portrait of humans flailing against nature.

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The mysterious atmosphere continues in Metaverse, May 2022, made in part as a response to the Dispatches documentary, Inside the Metaverse: Are you Safe?, which exposed the extreme racism and violence reporter Yinka Bokinni witnessed entering the metaverse posing as a 13-year-old girl. At one point, Bokinni described being cornered by seven users as they made sexual comments and tried to grab her.

It is that horrifying image that I think about looking at Starkey’s spectral image of a 13-year-old girl who stands in a defiant pose, head tilted up, face struck by the artificial light above. The whole image is tinged blue. All around her are people, their faces covered by VR headsets. The image’s perfect symmetry belies the fact it was made guerrilla-style – Starkey and her subject ambushing the Van Gogh immersive experience to take the picture. While no one is looking at her, the detachment doesn’t feel safe, and this space doesn’t feel safe. What use are alternative realities if they only replicate and worsen the way we treat and view women?

Starkey is so interesting as a photographer because she is constantly critical of her medium and its continued use against women. She undermines the assumptions of the camera, and acknowledges the vulnerability that comes with being photographed. In the second room are two self-portraits. Starkey shoots herself from below a mirrored ceiling, so that we look down on her repeated image, splintered through reflection. The mirror trope feels more symbolic and psychologically fraught here, more than a device to create visual intrigue. It’s the artist, seeing herself. And her image is fuzzy, blurry, or obscured by her camera, twice removed from us by the mirror and the lens, distant and unreachable. Rather than reveal the world to us, Starkey reveals its myriad ellipses.

• Hannah Starkey is at Maureen Paley, London, until 14 July.

Corning, NY (May 23, 2024) — The Rockwell Museum and Arnot Art Museum are thrilled to collaborate on a captivating exhibition featuring the work of acclaimed artist and photographer William Wegman. The exhibition, titled “Representation & Experimentation: The Photography of William Wegman,” showcases a selection of Wegman’s iconic photographs, renowned for their whimsical and thought-provoking depictions of his Weimaraner dogs.

At the Arnot Art Museum, visitors can explore the whimsical side of Wegman’s dog portraiture (Representation), while The Rockwell Museum features photos of dogs as art (Experimentation).

The Rockwell Museum | 111 Cedar Street, Corning, NY
On view: May 24 – September 3, 2024
Summer Hours: Open daily, 9 a.m. – 7 p.m.
KIDS ROCKWELL Art Lab open daily 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Arnot Art Museum | 235 Lake Street, Elmira, NY
                On View: May 17 – August 20, 2024
                Summer Hours: Tuesday – Friday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Saturday, Noon – 5 p.m.

William Wegman, a pioneering figure in contemporary art, began photographing his Weimaraner dogs in the 1970s. His imaginative use of props, costumes and settings has elevated his work beyond traditional pet photography, transforming it into an exploration of the human condition, identity and playfulness. With a formalist’s eye and an affinity for bold color, the photographs of multi-media artist William Wegman allow his viewers the opportunity to think, laugh, and uncover the world around us with his Weimaraner models. Wegman’s large format photographs are disarming and fun even as they shift into landscapes, portraits, still lifes and object studies.

The artist describes his work as a collaboration with his models, each having their own temperament and agency during the photographic process. Wegman has been working with Weimaraners since the 1970s, and many of his dogs, including Man Ray, Fay Ray and Flo, have become pop culture stars in their own right.

“Art lovers and dog enthusiasts alike are going to love this summer exhibition,” says Curator of Exhibitions and Collections at The Rockwell, Dr. Amanda Lett. “These are not just dog photos! Line, composition, color and form take center stage in the photographs on display.”

The Rockwell encourages every visitor to not just view, but experience American art. Visitors will find multiple interactive stations throughout the exhibition designed for art explorers of all ages to connect more deeply with the exhibition. On Floor 1M, tinker and play at the “Design Your Own Weimaraner Dog Portrait” station.

In addition to photography, William Wegman makes detailed paintings using postcards as a jumping off point. One of his “postcard paintings” will be on display amongst The Rockwell’s permanent collection. As a nod to this line of Wegman’s work, visitors are also invited to spend some time at the “Complete The Scene” station where you can create your own postcard-inspired artwork using cards generously donated by staff and community members.

Plus, visitors to both the Arnot and Rockwell can also pick up an “Art Hunt” at Admission Desk that when completed at both locations can be submitted for a fun and fuzzy prize.

To learn more about the exhibition, visit www.RockwellMuseum.org

Experimentation at The Rockwell in Corning is made possible by Elise Johnson-Schmidt and Family. Representation at The Arnot Art Museum in Elmira is made possible through the support of Corning Community Impact and Investment.

About The Rockwell Museum: A Smithsonian Affiliate

The Rockwell Museum, in association with the Smithsonian Institution, tells the story of the evolving American experience through a display of stunning art about America. Founded in 1976, The Rockwell is an evolving community center which showcases the best of America through compelling exhibitions and imaginative programs. The diverse collection includes a mix of contemporary Native American art with traditional bronze sculptures, landscape paintings and other works that embody America. Housed in the beautifully restored 19th century Old City Hall building, The Rockwell is active in the local community and holds special events and educational programming with area public schools. The Rockwell provokes curiosity, engagement and reflection about art and the American experience. The Rockwell Museum’s programs are made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

The Rockwell Museum | 111 Cedar Street | Corning, New York 14830 | www.rockwellmuseum.org
Facebook, Instagram: @RockwellMuseum
 

Press-Approved Images: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/5ehwqkucvpw6gzg96t4zj/h?rlkey=v4ltoe1uid9ya1k44xam7ai01&st=ms8eaqgt&dl=0

Media Contact:  Willa Vogel ▪ 607-438-0321 ▪ vogelw@rockwellmuseum.org

When the Nikon Z50 landed on the scene, there was polite applause. A golf clap. “Well done, old chap.”  

I remember first being shown the Nikon Z50 at the Big N’s headquarters. I thought it was a cool little camera – the 20.9MP sensor seemed a little stingy by 2019 standards, but otherwise it was compact and capable and perfectly respectable.

The general photo public, however, was pretty indifferent – and the Z50 hardly set cash registers on fire at camera stores. 

Fast-forward a couple of years, to the arrival of the Nikon Z fc. Another cool little camera – the 20.9MP sensor seemed a little stingy by 2021 standards, because it was the same sensor – and the same everything else – as the one in the Nikon Z50.

However, despite their internals being technically identical, the Z fc was styled like an old film camera and looked far more like a Fujifilm or Olympus body. Instead of golf claps came thunderous, Beyonce-level ovations – and instead of lukewarm cash registers, cameras flew off the shelves.

It blows my mind. The Nikon Z50 is – aside from having a pop-up flash and lacking a fully articulating screen – the exact same camera as the Z fc, it just doesn’t look retro. So what it tells us is that photographers don’t care about kit – or maybe they do, but they don’t care about what it does as much as how it looks. 

Why is this relevant in 2024? Because we’ve just seen the launch of the Panasonic Lumix S9 – a camera unashamedly aimed at content creators, Instagrammers, and dare I say it hipsters (or whatever hipsters have evolved to). It’s basically a Panasonic Lumix S5II but instead of looking like a boring boxy camera, it looks like an old film camera and it comes in fancy colors. 

And it’s probably going to sell like hot cakes. Because if there’s one thing the mirrorless revolution has told us, from Fujifilm to the Nikon Z fc and Zf, it’s that photographers are just hipsters. 

If you enjoyed this article, you might be interested in reading more about the best Nikon cameras and the best Nikon lenses – including the best Nikon Z lenses, designed exclusively for its mirrorless cameras.