Paul Marcellini Photography

The last part of my road-trip was a few days in Apalachicola National Forest and surrounding areas. It is Florida’s largest forest, at just under 600,000 acres. It also has a stellar burn program and the pinelands were a joy to wander. I noticed a bunch of painted white rings on the pines and came to find out they are the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker host trees. The RCW is an endangered species and I was happy to see several of the little guys while exploring the forest. I saw a lot of wildlife, including box and snapping turtles, turkey, deer, water moccasins, a fox squirrel, gators of course, swallow-tailed kites, opossums on a weird quest, maybe for a female, and a gray squirrel/snake scuffle that the squirrel won. Unfortunately, it was also tick abundant;I can put up with mosquitoes, but not ticks.

I was happy to see the bogs with carnivorous plants, the showiest being the pitcher plants. They gain additional nutrition by luring insects to the mouth of the pitcher, where they fall down the slippery walls and can’t get out. The plant then digests the insects and absorbs the good stuff.

Anyways, here are a few of my favorites. Let me know which ones you guys like.

These little carnivorous plants trap insects with sticky drops on their modified leaves.

My new car and home on the road.

Sorry for the lack of new blog posts, I went up to the Smokies, then over to Nashville and down to Apalachicola National Forest. I had a blast on the road trip and got home at the beginning of May. I have also been working down on Big Pine Key with the Institute for Regional Conservation removing exotic plants. So I am staying quite busy at the moment. Anyways, I figured I would just put up a couple images from the Smokies while I had some time.

One of the only "icon" shots I have ever taken. I like to have my own original images but the light on this was too nice to pass up.

There was a whole group of these Swallowtails soaking up a pee spot. Seems it got them a bit drunk. I helped this one out of the water after the image was taken.

I have been completely impressed with the image quality of the 5d2, but hadn’t pushed it too much in print size just yet. I am sorry if this is a repeat to those on Facebook, but I wanted to let everyone know that most of my images in the past year have been taken with the 5d2, and those should all look great at 40″x60″.  And to show you, here is Mangrove Magic, as a gallery wrapped canvas. It is as wide as a queen sized bed, if anyone has an empty space up there.  I really wish I could print all my 5d2 files this big, because it is awesome to see them at this size.

I am going to be up in the Smoky Mountains in a few weeks and this image was created on my last trip, in October 2009. This was taken in Cades Cove, on a nice chilly morning. The fog and deer couldn’t have cooperated better, and as the sun rose, it helped define the distant mountains and cast a nice warm glow over everything. For April only, this image is available at discounted prices. The image will be printed on Epson Lustre Paper with Epson Ultrachrome K3 inks. These are guaranteed not to fade for over 100 yrs when properly cared for.

I recently came across an image from my trip up to Hillsborough River State Park last summer. I had overlooked it because I had taken a much bolder and “better” image the following day. This first image was forgotten but as time has distanced the experience, I feel both hold their own, for their separate moods. Some may consider one too strong and prefer the subtle cooler tones of the other. I just figured I would put both up and show the contrast of moods and how light affects a scene.

This first one was taken in the late hours of the day. It was mostly shaded and thus the light was cooler in tone.

This second image was taken just after sunrise with a nice fog hanging in the air. It was a much harder image to process and manage the light, but the effort was worth it in my opinion. As you can see, there is a lot more warmth to the image. Both images are limited editions of 100 and can be purchased on several surfaces.

For a current Pricelist