Cayman Brac Trip Report

Sunrise at Pollard Bay on Cayman Brac

Today I begin my journey home. Assuming flights are on time I will arrive in Toronto at 5:40 p.m. and then make the one hour drive north to my home.

It was a great honour to have bird photographer extroadinare Arthur Morris and previous workshop attendee Anita North as participants for Cayman Brac 2018. We had a great time and created tons of Brown Booby nesting season images.

I remained on island for an additional week after the conclusion of the photo tour and was able to create some of my very best underwater imagery to date using a Nikon D500 and Nikkor 18-35mm lens in an Ewa Marine housing.

Yesterday, towards the end of the day, I was rewarded with a sighting of the critically endangered Sister Island Rock Iguana. He was most cooperative allowing me to photograph for about 10 minutes before he disappearred into the think underbrush of the surrounding forest.

Here are a few of my most favorite images created during my two week stay on Cayman Brac. There will be many more images to share in the days to come.

Andrew McLachlan, Anita North, & Arthur Morris

Brown Booby in Flight

Caribbean Reef Squid

Sister Island Curly-tailed Lizard

Sister Island Rock Iguana

Peacock Flounder

Spotted Stonefish

West Indian Whistling Duck

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High-Key Portraiture is for the Birds

Tri-colored Heron, Cayman Brac, Cayman Islands
Nikon D500, Nikkor 200-500mm lens
ISO 400
f8 @ 1/640 sec

High-Key lighting in portraiture has a very classic look and feel in the resulting imagery, with bright white, distraction free backgrounds and minimal shadows on the intended subject. While on my recent trip to Cayman Brac I had a few opportunities to explore using this high key technique on some very co-operative birdlife that I encountered. Each of these high key images were created using the Nikkor 200-500mm lens on a Nikon D500. Each of the birds were photographed in a backlit situation whereby I simply dialed in additional exposure to open up the shadows, allowing the background to fall where it may, ignoring any blinkies (highlight warnings) on the background, but ensuring there were no blinkies on the subject. While making my initial edits to each of the images in Adobe Camera Raw I varied the amount of brightness in the backgrounds, allowing the endangered West Indian Whistling Duck portrait to be the brightest as I felt it complimented the lighter tone of the ducks feathers.

Please do remember to click on each of the photos to view the larger, sharper version.

 

West Indian Whistling Duck, Cayman Brac, Cayman Islands
Nikon D500, Nikkor 200-500mm Lens
ISO 800
f8 @ 1/125 sec

 

Green Heron, Cayman Brac, Cayman Islands
Nikon D500, Nikkor 200-500mm Lens
ISO 400
f8 @ 1/200 sec

 

Tri-colored Heron, Cayman Brac, Cayman Islands
Nikon D500, Nikkor 200-500mm Lens
ISO 400
f8 @ 1/640 sec

 

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