Photographer Story 1: Enamored by the Ocean
About Kyle McBurnie, professional filmmaker and occasional hotographer from San Diego, California
When people talk about wildlife, they usually mean land animals. But more than 70% of our planet’s surface is ocean. Life first appeared in the ancient oceans around four billion years ago, and stayed there for a long time. Even now, some of Earth’s most biodiverse environments are underwater, and scientists estimate that less than 10% of all marine species have been discovered. Being underwater and seeing the life below the surface is incredible; it’s an entirely different world unlike anything on land, bathed in shifting light patterns, almost hauntingly beautiful. Few people know this better than Kyle McBurnie.
I first came across Kyle’s photography while flipping through the Oceans category in the 20th anniversary edition of Nature’s Best Photography magazine. I’ve never been diving and I’ve only snorkeled a few times, but his photos instantly brought back that feeling of quiet awe that I’ve only experienced underwater (although the oceans aren’t actually very “quiet” these days – marine noise pollution from ships and mining is a huge issue for whales and dolphins). These days, Kyle does more filmmaking and videography than still photography. He explains that it can be hard to tell the full story of an animal’s life and behavior in a handful of images, and by shooting video, he can truly dive into the stories of the animals he films. His film footage is amazing, and he recently received a Young Explorer Grant from National Geographic to film underwater bioluminescence.
Kyle’s father was fascinated with marine biology, but never pursued it as a career. He did, however, pass on that passion to his son, and supported him in getting scuba certified as a teenager and studying marine biology in college. After working aboard a dive boat, Kyle and a friend started their own recreational dive company, where they take people out to meet sharks and other inhabitants of the California kelp forests. Kyle fondly recalls a particularly special day when a female blue shark spent an unusually long time with them, and they stayed in the water with her into the evening: “We watched the sun go down and blow up the sky. We were in the water, and you could see the shark – she was glowing red from the sunset.” Kyle describes blue sharks as “a good ambassador shark.” Sharks could certainly use some good publicity; Jaws didn’t do them any favors.
All in all, Kyle spends a lot of time in the water, and it’s affected his perspectives on marine biodiversity. When I ask him about this, he’s unsure at first: “It depends … sometimes when you’re photographing, you’re not paying as much attention to what’s going on in front of you because you’re trying to get the shot, so you might not have noticed that second species of fish swimming by in the background. But on the flip side, if you’re photographing for natural history, you’re paying a lot more attention to behaviors, and species, and who’s interacting and stuff, so… I’d say being a photographer makes me more aware and want to know more about what I’m seeing, versus if I were just diving somewhere and I’m happy to just take the divemaster’s word for it.” He’s also personally witnessed the effects of warming oceans on California kelp forests, and is very aware of issues like overfishing, pollution, and the spread of marine diseases. Kyle mentions that it would’ve been a lot easier to run a business based around animal interactions 20 years ago, when things like blue and mako sharks were more abundant.
One thing that’s really important to Kyle is the establishment of marine protected areas, or MPAs, which are sort of the ocean equivalent of national parks. Fishing, diving, and other human activities are regulated to protect the local marine life. His favorite diving spot, San Clemente Island, is not protected, nor are a lot of other important and biodiverse areas off the California coast. Another major issue is that MPAs don’t always completely protect pelagic species, or those that live in the open sea. Many types of fish or other marine creatures might have different stages of their lives in different places with different fishing laws, and one place might have a strictly regulated MPA while another might have no protection at all. This is a huge, international problem, and Kyle strongly feels that we need pelagic MPAs and international species protection.
Fortunately, there’s already some protection in place for marine mammals, which are some of Kyle’s favorite animals. “[Photographing them] is rare, which makes it special,” he says. The Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibits people from approaching or interfering with them, but Kyle has spent enough time in the water that he’s learned how to behave around them so they’ll be interested in approaching him. That makes a huge difference in his photos and film footage. He explains, “You could be the best photographer in the world, but if you can’t bring yourself to entice a harbor seal to come look at you closely, you’re never going to really get that shot.” He also finds it easy to connect with whales and seals: “I think it’s just a mammalian sympathy where you feel like you can understand their emotions, whereas it’s really hard to understand the emotions of a fish, other than that they have them.”
One thing that I find really intriguing is that Kyle often doesn’t show anyone a lot of his photos. That makes it crystal clear to me that he’s not in this for money or the publicity or anything like that – instead, it’s all about his love for the ocean, and how much he enjoys sharing “water time” with so many wonderful creatures. Fortunately for the rest of us though, he does share enough of his photos and film footage that we get to see some of the incredible things he gets to see, things that most of us would never even know about. As Kyle says, “You spend a thousand hours in the water, and you’re going to see something really amazing because really amazing things happen all the time … we’re just not there to see them.”
Quick Facts
Favorite place to take photos: The kelp forests around San Clemente Island, off the coast of San Diego
Favorite photo subjects: Marine mammals – seals, sea lions, whales, and dolphins
What’s next for Kyle: Working on a VR experience film in the Philippines, looking for unknown plane wrecks in Paua New Guinea, and continuing to work towards protection of pelagic species.
Where you can find him online: www.kylemcburnie.com
Kyle’s Photography Tips
Focus on getting really comfortable in the water – “If you’re comfortable in the water, you’re already a 90% better underwater photographer.”
Once you're comfortable, focus on adapting your body language. Some animals are shy, so be submissive. Some animals are curious, so make yourself obvious. Play to the psyche of your subject.
Work on developing relationships with marine mammals so they feel comfortable approaching you (but you should never approach them!)
Talk to people in the area you might be diving to learn about what animals you can find where, and what they might be doing.
Spend a lot of time in the water and be patient – you’ll be rewarded with amazing things!
Photographer Story 2: The Story of Colorado
About Elisa Dahlberg, amateur photographer from Aurora, Colorado
I didn’t know what to expect when I reached out to Elisa Dahlberg. There wasn’t much to go on – just a single photo from Nature’s Best Photography and an email address. Elisa doesn’t have a website or an online space for her photography; she works for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, so many of her wildlife photos technically belong to the government. I tentatively sent my email, and promptly received an enthusiastic yes and a life story – before we even arranged a Skype session. She’s a lovely soul who laughs easily and often, and we had a great conversation.
Elisa served in the US Air Force for several years, and after leaving the military, she went back to school to study geology, ecology, evolutionary biology, museum collections management, and vertebrate paleontology. Then she was hired by the US Fish and Wildlife Service as a park ranger at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. Now she works for the National Eagle and Wildlife Repository (also run by Fish and Wildlife), where she helps manage the collections of eagles found dead across the US, and the collections of illegal wildlife products that have been confiscated by US Customs agents. It’s kind of a macabre, depressing job, Elisa says, but it’s important work.
Her wildlife photography hobby started on a family trip to Yellowstone National Park (now a semi-annual event). There were plenty of animals to be seen, but Elisa was frustrated with her little point-and-shoot camera. She worked on improving a little bit at a time, practicing out on the Rocky Mountain Arsenal Refuge, and moved up to better SLR cameras. “It’s kind of an addiction!” she says. “You’re just like, ‘I gotta get that better shot, gotta get that better shot’ … [It’s about] just wanting to get that better shot and tell a better story.”
One thing that distinguishes Elisa from many other wildlife photographers is her focus on an animal’s context. While it’s nice to get a tight facial shot, she really likes to back up and capture the landscape too, to show the animal within its environment. She’ll go somewhere with the goal of photographing a certain animal, but while there she’ll take photos of everything else that’s around – flowers, common animals, birds – to try to document the entire ecosystem. She says, “I usually come home with a pretty good album of all the things that were in that area, not just that one thing that I went there for.” Also, after working and taking photos at the Refuge for several years, Elisa has seen animals' patterns of behavior changing – migratory birds arriving and leaving later, fawns being born earlier, pikas (like the one below) moving to higher elevations, and so on. Each photo, each piece of context, contributes to the story of that animal and that ecosystem. And all of those stories add up to reveal a bigger picture – the story of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains.
Telling these stories is hugely important for Elisa, especially when so many people are really disconnected from the natural world. Fortunately, her photos do seem to get people to notice things. She says, “I just share a lot of [my photos] on my Facebook page with my friends. But I think what that does is open up a world that they don’t see all the time, because I go find these things and take pictures of them, and they’re like, ‘Oh, what is that?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, it’s a flower you probably have in your backyard, but just don’t know because you don’t pay attention to it.’” Those photos that attract the interest of her friends can also reach a much wider audience through the Fish and Wildlife Service than Elisa could reach on her own.
One thing that’s more difficult to share with the public is the collection of confiscated wildlife products in the Repository where she works. They do offer tours once a month though, where Elisa regularly sees visitors become horrified and extremely angry. She describes walking through the Repository’s warehouse: “aisles and aisles of dead animals… everything from tigers to caiman to pangolin to native species, bear, wolves … rhino horn, which is worth more than a lot of drugs on the black market … That in itself is a worldwide example of biodiversity that’s being extinguished for profit. When I see all these animals come into the warehouse, it hurts my heart. I think that translates into my photography a little more because I’m afraid that at some point that’ll happen to the animals around me in our native ecosystem. The plains are being eaten up day by day in construction, new housing developments… it’s like wildfire.”
However, Elisa has seen some promising signs of increasing biodiversity too, at least on the Refuge. Black-footed ferrets were declared extinct at least twice, but were reintroduced in the Refuge several times over the last few years – and it’s a perfect place for them. Black-footed ferrets are obligate predators to prairie dogs, of which there are around 55,000 on the Refuge. Elisa documents them whenever she sees them, and while they’re naturally elusive, they seem to be thriving. The prairie dogs support dozens of other species too, including burrowing owls, rattlesnakes, rabbits, badgers, raptors (birds of prey), and coyotes.
Elisa takes photos of all of these animals and more, as well their interactions; she tells the stories of the wildlife of the Rocky Mountains to reconnect people with nature. Her philosophy? “Make people care about it and they’ll want to protect it.”
Quick Facts:
Favorite places to take photos: Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge, Mt. Evans (for alpine critters), Waterton Canyon (bighorn sheep), and Yellowstone National Park
Favorite photo subjects: Bison, but she doesn’t discriminate. “I’ll take anything, honestly, any day.” Has issues with kestrels though – “Every time I see one they’re in the worst lighting ever!”
What’s next for Elisa: Visiting Glacier National Park, Yosemite National Park, and the Pacific northwest, and also entering more photo competitions
Where you can find her online: No website or public page of her own, but you can see some of her stuff on the Fish and Wildlife Mountain and Prairie Flickr page.
Elisa’s Photography Tips:
Know the ethics of wildlife photography – respect the animal’s space and needs, don’t get too close to the animal or disturb it, don’t be obnoxious. You shouldn’t be changing an animal’s behavior with your presence.
Get a good camera (and know how to use it!)
Learn how to take good, artful photos – framing the shot, composition, lighting, what the background looks like, things like that.
BUT if you see something cool, if something’s happening – just get the photo!
