La Chua Trail, Payne's Prairie

Hello again! It has been a very busy Fall here as a photographer. I did a photoshoot in North Carolina and Savannah Georgia. Recently my wife and I hiked 5 miles at La Chua Trail. This is in Gainesville, Florida in a beautiful park called Payne's Prairie. I strongly recommend this for any nature lover who is in north central Florida. Here are a couple of the photos I have processed, but still working on the rest.

                                                                

                                      

Here is my commercial website. I have gallaries with more than 600 photographs of wildlife, nature, and scenery in various categories. Please come and browse through the photos and I hope you enjoy them.

http://kenneth-albin.artistwebsites.com/

Sneaking Up On Me!

Here is an alligator at the edge of a swamp close to my house. As I was photographing him the alligator was busy sizing me up for a meal. I hope he found a more suitable dinner after I left.

Sam The Man!

Sam has a new Facebook page now at Sam's Facebook Page. Here you can check out the latest news on The Man himself and view his fantastic videos. Drop by and become a fan. Sam expects it!

Anatomy of a Music Video

Here is the Southern Kitties video.

I thought some of you might find it interesting how I made this demented, funny little music video so here are the basics:

1) I storyboarded the original idea to get a feel for what would be needed to put this thing together.

2) Worked on the drums, banjo, and bass using a MIDI program. Once this was transferred to .wav format I burned it on a CD for further use.

3) I added live vocals and background acoustic guitar while monitoring the CD. After putting all tracks on a program called Kristal I added a prerecorded jaw harp and balanced everything for volume. I also added a little reverb and compression to a couple of the tracks. I then mixed down and recorded the result as a single .wav file to be used in the video.

4) I went through hundreds of cat photos to get a few that would be suitable. The main cat photo was touched up with a paint program and made into a series of photos showing the mouth opening. I had to add a tongue and teeth cut out of another photo to make these look realistic. Otherwise all you would see would be a gaping black hole for a mouth!

5) Now comes the tedious part. Each photo was converted to transparent .GIF photos and stratigically placed over a background photo of a field. Each photo had to be lined up in the proper sequence and place to show the mouth opening and closing in time with the singing. I did this one or two frames at a time over thousands of frames. This step took about 2 long days of work.

6) I then added peripheral touches like the other cat heads and flying bird and placed them in proper locations on the screen, moving them in the desired direction using the Adobe Premiere motion feature.

7) One day of fine tuning and fixing goofs in the movements and it was done. I then converted the whole thing to mpg2 format using Premiere and put it on YouTube.

I hope this helps any aspiring videographic animators out there. The result was crude but serviceable and the cost was 0$ since I already had Adobe Premiere and the other programs were free. I used a program called Audacity to record the sound and Kristal for sound mixing.

All the best from the Cat Wrangler! Now I need to get back in the field and take some nature photos.

Laughing Gull

I followed a little laughing seagull around at Guana State park in Ponte Vedra, Florida. This is a mini pictorial essay of him.

Here is the gull hunting for dinner around the lake shallows. It was low tide and there were schools of fish splashing everywhere.

He caught a fish and carried it to the edge of the water. Here he worked at turning the fish around so he could swallow it. I felt sorry for the poor little fish but I guess the gull needs to eat too.

After eating his dinner the gull became fascinated by my camera and tripod. He walked over to where I was and studied me and the camera. He was obviously a little puzzled by this strange guy who was taking photographs of him! A cute little guy, isn't he?

New Rookery Photographs

My commercial work, approximately 150 wildlife and nature photographs are for sale at Kenneth Albin Photography. The company does beautiful work transferring my art to canvas, greeting cards, and framed archival prints. If you are looking for wildlife or nature art to hang in your home or business please take a look at my site.

Here are some of last week's photos from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm bird rookery. Nesting is in full swing now!

Three great egret chicks.

The great egrets even talk while flying!

Closeup of a tricolor heron.

Great egret ballet.

St. Augustine Rookery Photo Shoot

I have a new commercial photography website. It is Ken Albin Fine Art Photography. The website company does excellent printing and framing work and I highly recommend them. If you are interested in a nature or wildlife photograph or canvas please check out my site. I currently have more than 140 photographs there. Many of them are placed into specific galleries to make it easier for you to find something specific you may be looking for. I hope you enjoy my efforts to show the beautiful scenery of Florida.

Last week I went to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm wild bird rookery to take some nesting photographs. It was a humbling experience shooting next to professionals from National Geographic and several other famous magazines. I certainly learned a lot being with them and had a great time with this opportunity to capture some images of these beautiful birds. The rookery is a swamp where herons, egrets, and storks come to raise their young. They have the natural protection of a group of alligators under the nests who keep ground predators away.

A great egret mom and her chick.

A roseate spoonbill in flight.

A wood stork. This is an endangered species.

3 Weeks Working With Iona

I've been totally tied up with taming Iona lately. It's been a real challenge but I've seen tiny improvements daily. She has now figured out how to play with her 'ball in a ring' toy. Iona is more relaxed and she is also starting to put a little weight on her bad leg. Here is a photo I took today of her resting in the window with her little stuffed toy. The surgical scar where they put the pin in is evident. I estimate she will take several more months of work before she is completely tame.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

While I was at my chiropractor this week one of the workers told me about a cat she was feeding behind the building who had a badly hurt leg. I could not turn away from this poor feral kitty so I brought a trap to the chiropractor and got the cat Wednesday. She was so feral she was throwing herself against the cage violently so I took her to the closest vet there. She scratched the vet, pooped on the floor, and tried to climb the walls before they sedated her. They took x-rays and found she had a dislocated shoulder and a fractured humerus, probably due to being hit by a car. They also treated her for hookworms and fleas. I then took her to my vet to evaluate her for possible surgery. We have a good orthopedic surgeon there who said he could do 2 surgeries in 1 day. Monday he will pop the shoulder joint back into place, holding it by moving a muscle and putting in a plate. He is then going to rebreak the old humerus fracture and put in another plate.

We named her Iona and have her isolated in a room at home. She is completely feral and I have started working to gain her trust. So far she hisses and growls a lot and has not figured out how to use a litter pan. She is at least eating well so that is a start. It may take months to get her somewhat tamed since she has never been touched by a human before. Here is Iona's first photo at home.

The total cost of her medical bills will be around $2000. As a retiree on a limited income this is really draining our bank account. We asked our vet to let us put in a donation jar but they refused. I am asking for your help. Please buy a nature photograph or greeting cards from my site at Fine Art America. It will go to help pay for Iona's medical bills. I know she is only one feral cat but it is everyone's responsibility to care for these poor creatures. Please help.

Oooh, a cool snake!

I ran upon this guy while traveling down a local nature trail. It is a dusky pygmy rattlesnake, a very poisonous snake with a reputation for being extremely aggressive and vicious. It rarely kills humans but can cause intense damage of tissue and loss of digits.

I am attuned to wildlife and my wife has nicknamed me Dr. Doolittle. I think they can sense that I don't mean them any harm so animals are almost never aggressive towards me. When I saw this little guy sunning himself I slowly dropped down and worked my way up to him until I was less than a foot away. He showed no aggression or nastiness and did not even rattle. Their rattle is a high pitched buzzing sound similar to a flying bee. He very obligingly posed for this shot. Lovely golden eyes!

You can purchase any of my photos as prints or greeting cards at Fine Art America.

I Kan Write But I Kan't Spell!

Here is a female writing spider, Argiope aurantia, found in my back yard this morning. This species has always been a favorite of mine. I know some people are terrified by spiders but this one won't bite unless provoked and is a great spider to control insects in the yard. You may also appreciate the fact that the female is a great parent, protecting her eggs from other predators until she dies during the first hard freeze.

An Inquisitive Anole

These little lizards hang out on the house sunning themselves in the afternoon. This guy was very curious about the camera and not the least bit shy.