Shooting Notes III

Cartagena, a city on the Caribbean with a rich and long history, is surrounded by a huge mangrove formed by the flood plains and lake lands of the River Magdalena and its tributaries. While the Magdalena does not flow through Cartagena, a series of natural lakes, lagoons (ciénagas) and man-made canals dug by the Pre-Colombian Zenú form an enormous thorn mangrove that stretches all the way to Santa Marta.

To defend the city from bands of pirates and invading navies often numbering in the thousands, the colonial Spaniards built a network of walls around the city's outermost shores, leaving the waters behind it to ebb and swell sustaining a diverse ecosystem of birds, fish and crustaceans.

Further to the west, the mangrove winds behind a sandy beach area, an area of extreme poverty where a native population--mixed with Spaniards and the slaves they brought throughout the 1500's and 1600's--eek out a meager living on the water.

The first time I went, I shot within the tunnels of reeds and trees from the slow-moving canoe guided by a young man from the area, fairly knowledgeable about the flora and fauna. Toward the end of the tour, near sunset, I saw, on the flat calm beach, the villagers unwinding from a day at work. Some were coming home from meager jobs in the hospitality industry, but most, were fishermen in the ocean and mangrove. The light and the scenery was captivating.

I pushed my equipment as far as it would go; the shoot was a failure. Next day, I looked at the worthless footage, burned out in some areas and in grim focus in others. I revisited the equipment I brought, packed the long lens with the extra-long lens-hood and the tripod. A few hours later, at sunset, I was on the water with my tour guide again.

The waters of the mangrove are only about 12 inches (30 cm) deep, so when I saw what I wanted, I requested the tour guide to stop, planted my tripod in the water and shot, with just a little sway, because of the incoming tide. Washed the tripod in the shower when I got back to the hotel. As for the edges of the reeds, again, with the long lens, I shot from a distance to capture details of the environment as we glided by.


I used images by Frank Gohlke (left) as reference and inspiration.

Lesson learned: push your equipment as far as it can go without ruining it. And, never hesitate to shoot something twice. Three times or more if necessary.