Audubon's Dr. Paul Gray was featured along with our Everglades Conservation Team in the latest edition of Audubon Magazine. Read Dr. Gray's account of the interview here and if you haven't yet read the wonderful article, click here to do so now! Enjoy:
The November-December 2011 edition of Audubon Magazine included Ted Williams’s Incite article entitled “Life Support” aboutLake Okeechobee. I helped Ted and photographer Kathleen Wolkoff with background materials and touring, and they even included a photo of me. Ted visited Florida in July. Soft spoken, thoughtful and most of all, inquisitive, it was a pleasure working with him again.
First, we boarded Don Fox’s boat (Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Committee) to inspect Okeechobee from the water. The Lake was extremely low but in the last wet fringe of the mostly-dried marsh, plants and animals abounded, as Ted described. After lunch, Gary Lickle flew into the Kissimmee River at the OkeeTantie Recreation Area to pick Ted up for a look from above. Upon returning, both were excited about seeing a manatee and walking back to the car Ted told me, “this is good, the article is starting to write itself.”
The next day I took him on an ill-fated kayak trip on the Kissimmee River. I directed us down a flowing tributary toward the restored river and floodplain, but we were blocked by dense vegetation. He just did his interview there. The paddle back was strenuous against the current and with it being humid, sunny, and 90+ degrees, it reminded us why some early explorers wrote such tortured accounts of Florida. Ted never complained and walking afterward along the shady Hickory Hammock trail along the river, conditions were much nicer..
We toured two Florida Ranchlands Environmental Services Projects that were developed by the World Wildlife Fund. First, the MacArthur Agro-ecology Research Center(also known as the Buck Island Ranch) where Dr. Betsy Boughton explained the project. Next, Jimmy Wohl hosted us on his Rafter T Ranch project. Ted and I got stung by a couple of honeybees who had made a home in steps to one of Jimmy’s structures (Jimmy was first in line), and Jimmy later had a bee keeper safely remove the hive.
After the draft article was written, Katherine Wolkoff was sent by the magazine to photograph the trips with Ted, accompanied by Audubon’s Evan Simon. I was nervous about her visit because in looking at her web page, among her credentials were photographic exhibits at art galleries and photographing Lady Gaga…and I’m supposed to drag this person through the Okeechobee wetlands? Happily she was quite comfortable in the wilds and she too seemed to have some misgivings that a brief Lady Gaga connection gets more interest than some of her more serious work.
Katherine used a couple of cameras including the expected digital camera, but also a large “4x5 field camera” that uses real film (4 by 5 inches square) and requires a dark hood over camera and photographer. She says the film is getting harder to come by and she has a refrigerator full of film. The Rafter T photo (page 59) and the ethereal sunrise photo on Lake O (page 66) were taken with the large camera—and others, I can’t remember. She likes to photograph during “good” light at sunrise and sunset, which makes one pretty sleep-deprived after a few days. The magazine told her, “no promises, but if she got something good enough, she might get the magazine cover.” And you can see on the cover, she and Okeechobee got it.
This work has many frustrations, but days like these, and being able to work with a diverse and talented Audubon team who are so excited about our work, returns many rewards.
