HERONS & EGRETS
I've been all over the United States but regret to admit that I did not own a camera until 2000. I'm having a blast photographing everything I can now, and I can't wait to get back on the road and do some real traveling.
I have a large portfolio of film images, and a growing portfolio of digital images. The images presented here are images made during my favorite times in the field. If you require a photograph that you don't see here, please contact me at gloriahopkins@gmail.com
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TO ARTICLES PAGE
FAVORITE TRIPS
Alligator Farm, St. Augustine, Florida
While I love site-seeing and trips in the field with friends, when I am seriously after the best photographs I can get, I like to go alone. When I am with another I am always too self-conscious about spending too much time on a subject and I dislike having someone wait on me.
One of my first serious bird photography trips was when I visited The Alligator Farm Zoological Park in St. Augustine, Florida. I was there using the Canon system for the first time and a lens I'd never used. The egrets at the top of this page were the result of that trip.
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MEMORABLE MOMENTS
There is a little key I like to visit near Little Torch Key where frigatebirds and double-crested cormorants rest during the day. Sam drives me out there in the boat and leaves me for several hours and I walk around the key and photograph the birds from every angle. At sunrise the colors and light are magical and make for a spectacular sunrise and a very intense moment with nature.
I remember being out there before the sun came up one day and I called a friend on a cel phone to describe the scene. It was the first time I'd used a cel phone in the field.
It was a surreal moment: the silence, the stillness of the vast body of water, the sun coloring the sky and water with colors I'd never seen before. I couldn't tell water from air and the brilliant light was almost blinding. Pelicans dove into the water for breakfast and frigatebird took flight from the mangroves at the arrival of the sun. It was just me, nature and the sun. It was beautiful.
Frigatebird and Mangrove
FAVORITE SUBJECTS
Anything that has a great design I will love. I get as excited about great designs as some folks do about subject matter or lenses. I can spend a long time on a great composition.
If I had to choose one subject, I'd say animals. I love animals, I can relate to them, I understand them and I can even communicate with some of them. Their innocense and the purity of their souls is ever-compelling to me.
FAVORITE QUOTES
"It is horrifying that we have to figh our own government to save our environment."
-Ansel Adams
FAVORITE LOCALES
Yosemite National Park
Yellowstone National Park
Everglades National Park
The Florida Keys
Big Island of Hawaii
Louisiana's Swamps
DREAM PHOTO LOCALES
I've been to many of these locations already but I would very much like to go back with a camera someday.
California Coast
Coast of North Carolina
Canada
Mexico and Baja
Remote Alaska
Glacier National Park
Death Valley
Utah's Canyons
CAMERAS USED
Canon EOS Rebel
Canon EOS20D
Canon EOS10D
Canon EOS3
Shen Hao 4x5 field camera
Nikon F-100
Nikon N60
LENSES USED
Canon 600mm f/4.0 IS
Canon 500mm f/4.0 IS
Canon 300mm f/4.0 IS
Canon 100-400mm f/4.0 IS
Canon 50mm f/1.4
Canon 85mm f/1.8
Canon 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6
Canon 28-70mm f/2.8
Canon 70-200mm f/2.8
Tamron 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6
Tamron 200-400mm f/5.6
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