Adventures with a Camera

Research with a Camera

When I was almost 20 years old, I started into the hobby of photography. Several years later, my skill and artistry had progressed to the point that I received my own gallery exhibition on a local level. The title of the show was 'Exploring our World'. On a physical level, these images recorded nature and society. On a personal level, they were a part of larger body of work entitled 'In Search of life' which were made in my search for understanding into what it meant to live. In many ways, these images were a reflection of the philosophy and science I was following in trying to understand our world.

Almost a decade later, I am still taking pictures. I am still exploring our world ... but now I do it as a believer rather than as a philosopher or scientist. To certain degrees I am still in search of what it means to live, but now it is sought for through faith rather than through logic. The differences between the meaning of life and the emptiness and vanity of philosophy and science are difficult to express. The effects of living life by faith as opposed to trying to understand everything by logic is enormous.

Bioluminescent Mushrooms

Good day everyone, today I am going to describe one of my photography adventures. As background, I will share that at the age of 18 I was suicidal and that directed my actions for many years to come. I was exploring the world as much as I could to see just what life had to offer - what were the limits and unusual things that could be found. Some years back, I was near a mountain that I found out had glow-in-the-dark mushrooms. Wow! I wanted to see this. glowing items just are not that common. In order to see these things glowing, I would have to be there at night ... and so the adventure begins. As this particular natural preserve was locked shut at night, I had to receive permission from the national park service to be there. The application was extensive - including specific dates and objectives. It took a couple weeks, but I was accepted. I had chosen a night with less of a moon and which would not rise until later in the night because it's light would ruin the experience. I was also going to go against standard safety guidelines as typically in the wilderness: You should travel with a partner - but I had no one that wanted a more than 24 hour adventure including going up and down a mountain You should let people know where you are - maybe my starting point was known, but I was going to follow the clues for the mushrooms - who knows where I would end up in the huge place You should not travel rugged terrain at night - Huh! - that is exactly what I have to do - well, okay it was not too rugged I guess. You should pack a lot of safety equipment - well, I was packing some camera gear and did not want much extra weight. You should have a way to call for help - while a cell phone might work, a rescue crew would have to somehow get into the locked park, drive up, and hike up to find me - or use a helicopter I was, for all intents and purposes, on my own ... but I have a lot of outdoor skills and I accepted that. My only consolation was that although there were things like scorpions around, there were no large predatory animals like mountain lions or bears. Well, the day arrived. I drove the 2 1/2 hours there. Signed in, found a trail head start. And in the afternoon started my ascent. The place was beautiful and I took a lot of pictures on the way up. But I had to hurry because I wanted to reach the top before nightfall - top elevation was over 4,000 feet. It was almost dark, the wind was blowing strongly at the top, I sat down and ate my packed supper and waited until it was fully dark. As I began my descent, I hoped I would be able to stay near the path(s) and/or side trail(s) ... as it turned out, this was possible. That helped. I had a special flashlight that had both a red night vision and a blue hunter's light (typically used to track blood because the iron would show up well) Interestingly, the blue light also made the iron in the red clay glow well so I could see the ground nicely and it did not seem to bother my night vision. But I did have to turn even those lights off to look for the faint glow of the mushrooms. It did not take long to find something. I found a fallen log with some glowing stuff on it ... looked like a slime mold or maybe the old fibers of something. The photography was not easy ... 15 second exposures with a high speed film equivalent. But I was not satisfied as I wanted to see mushrooms. A couple hours later, I found leaves on the forest floor with little glowing threads in them ... this was closer - the roots of the mushroom were in these leaves. Again I spent some time taking pictures. By now, my right leg was hurting ... why? I don't know - it was strong hiking, but I had not fallen or injured myself. A couple hours later, I found them !! A whole patch of tiny glowing mushrooms. Each one on the stem of a leaf on the ground. They were beautiful. They were tiny. And, technically, the mushrooms did not produce the glow, but the bacteria living inside them did. I spent awhile taking pictures. And I had just made it, because then the moon rose up and ruined the finding and viewing of these things. It was about 2 am. Now I only had to make it back to the car - that turned into a longer trip as one trail I was on had a bridge out and required a longer detour. I had been assigned a campsite and I had brought a tent and sleeping bag ... but I was exhausted and just collapsed in the back seat of the car. I had a few hours of sleep. I woke up in time to drive out of the park as it was opening ... no sense letting the public see me sleeping in a car. I later sent some of the photos to the park ... they were impressed I had actually found them. Here is what one looked like (with and without camera flash):

Rio Abajo Cave Snake

Well, I missed almost an entire day here at NFP ... but I had an incredible time out exploring a cave known to have a small bat colony. I took advantage of the holiday, Epiphany / Three Kings Day. I do not celebrate it, but this island really does. After the weekly grocery shopping (with extremely short lines), I stopped at the equivalent of a state forest that includes a cave. No one else was there ... I could take my time and leisurely explore. After a short hike and a small climb, I was there. A small, roughly 3 x 8 foot opening in the wall. As I entered a small cloud of bats were disturbed ... the floor was quite uneven because of the many fallen limestone rocks ... and a thin layer of guano on top. About 50 feet in was the best discovery of the day ... there was a snake ... about 4 feet long ... sitting there ... I got to look at it a bit before it slowly moved away from the light ... It was somewhat pale, with black on the bottom scales ... most likely a constrictor ... possibly a boa ( I hoped so, because the Puerto Rican Boa is an endangered animal ). As I went around, the cave had maybe 4 chambers connected by crawl ways and a few smaller rooms. The main chambers get touristed and the stalactites are broken off ... there is writing on the wall ... etc. But the smaller rooms were less frequented and had better features including the lowest room of all which had actively growing soda straws. The highest room also seemed ignored and had better columns. I could not resist tapping some with my flashlight and hearing the metallic ring. I also saw some 'cave spiders' or 'guabas' ... they are not actually spiders and they look more like scorpions ... they are harmless to people, but lethal to the cockroaches that live on the guano. I was quite tired coming up out of the lowest room ... and I do wonder if the oxygen content might have been low there ... of if I am just out of shape. I was a thorough mess coming of the the cave ... walking, crawling, moving at odd angles in tight spaces ... I was glad to get out and rest. When I returned home, I looked up the snake. It turns out is was a cave version (pale) of the Puerto Rican Boa ... Even better, there were videos of them actually catching and eating bats on YouTube ... I had no idea they would do that. I call that a good day. I experienced something new and learned some things about it. It is amazing how well those caves hide. If you did not already know it was there, you would look across the forest and at that big hill and not see the small opening hidden most of the way up ... nor all the fun things inside.

This page is under construction. My apologies for any misspellings, repeated text, missing references, etc. Please visit again later for a more complete treatment of this topic.