A Little Fashion in the Swamp

Back on April the 13th, we got together with Carrie and headed down to the Big Cypress Preserve to shoot some fashion in the swamp. After a few little missteps we were on our way to a really beautiful day.

I had reserved a Ford Escape Hybrid from the rental company. When I went to pick up the vehicle in the morning they had brought a Toyota Prius Hybrid. It may be a good car but we needed the space of the SUV. I lost about an hour and a half switching out the Toyota for the Escape. This ate up the extra time I had figured into the morning so I was a bit irritated at this point.

Stopping at home, I was rushing to pack everything into the Escape. I had to switch coolers as the Escape is not quite as wide as my previous SUVs, a 2002 Durango and 1999 Explorer. But everything fit fine once we shuffled it around.

During this period of frantic repacking I had called Carrie and left a message. Well I thought I had. Apparently I had transposed two digits of her phone number. It's not unusual for models not to have recorded a personal message on their cell phones so I though nothing about it when I got a generic message.

However from her end she was confused when someone besides yours truly answered the number I had given her. Yes, I had mistyped my cell number in the e-mail I sent to her!

When we found her house, almost two hours later than I had planned to be there, she had all but given me up for lost. Luckily Carrie is a good sport and flexible. She grabbed her bag of stuff and off we went.

We got to Loop Road about 2 in the afternoon. Going straight to Sweetwater Slough,... There was no water in the swamp! Well a pitiful puddle where once there was a slowly flowing stream. And grass growing where there was black water just a few short months ago.

We shot a few images with Carrie in a business suit for stock. Jackee found some images of otters and other critters while Carrie and I worked on our project. Now we'll see if the stock photography buyers share my vision.


After having some wraps and chips we headed down gator Hook Trail to our location. Like Sweetwater Slough the dwarf cypress stand was dry as a bone. There was grass growing where water had stood two feet deep in the fall. The overall ambiance was bright and cheery due to the light covering of leaves at this time of the year.

I shot available light with a reflector for all of the shots here. My 200mm kept the back ground confusion to a minimum. Well as minimum as it can be in the swamp.

Keeping an eye on the position of the sun we headed to our final location in the grassy prairie to work with the setting sun and the wide expanses there. Jackee's shot from behind the scene at the top of this page was from that setting. This gives you a good idea of the area we were working in.

We shot until it was all but dark. We walked out in the afterglow of the setting sun, the end to a perfect afternoon.

Carrie was a real joy to work with. We're already making plans for our next projects together. Soon I hope!