New CP Photography Book

[makoto]

I just published a CP photography book "Carnivorous Plants in the Wilderness" --- available from Amazon.

My main focus is to convey the sense of wonder these unique and beautiful species have, by presenting the best CP images I have accumulated over the past 30 years.

The book does not advance any theory - the text in the book is intended to be a summary of all the accumulated knowledge about CP from the days of Darwin, Lloyd, all the way to the current research in molecular systematics.

The book starts with the general introduction of CP in the world, followed by detailed description of each of the six CP genera occurring in the USA. The book ends with a 10-page bibliography section. In Darlingtonia chapter, the stories of cobra plants' elusive pollinators were examined. In Drosera chapter, detailed discussion of tentacle movement was given. All U.S. sundew species were presented, including a good image coverage of D. linearis in flower in northern Michigan. The trap mechanism of VF was presented in detail. In Utricularia, the door opening was described using "buckling" as the main triggering mechanism for this amazing trap. 

I covered most of the species in the U.S. (except for some Utrics I did not have chance to photograph in the wild). This book is about my photographic journey into the CP wilderness!

Makoto

    

[Sockhom]

Congratulations Makoto! This is some great news. But the color edition is not avalaible yet, am I right? I could only found the black & white version and the kindle edition via Amazon.

All the best,

François.

[jdallas]

Makoto,

Will this book be available as a print book?

Jeff

[makoto]

The book is available as a color print book also (to be out soon).

[makoto]

The color version of the book is available within 5 days.

Many people commented on my photos that appeared in some magazines in the past (Natural History, National Wildlife, Garden Heaven,..) and many Japanese publications.

I counted the number of photos I used in this new book, and there are 406 (give or take). I realized that there are many "wide" angle shots. I use other lenses also - normal lens/macro, telephotos - but in the final selection of images used in this book, I ended up deciding on many wide-angle shots, especially for the images of a large format (particularly page-spreads). In fact, there are quite a few "fish-eye" shots! (Can you guess how many?) For those of you not familiar with the term, a Fish-Eye lens is an extremely wide-angle lens covering a 180 degree-view. I have been using a fish-eye lens for many years, and it is one of my favorites.

I always try to capture the environment my subject plants are growing in, so a wide-angle lens is a natural choice for that purpose. But that being said, people talk about the perspective I use for my CP shots. My pictures may be different from other people's pictures. I can even say that many of my pictures are not truthful to reality - that is, the reality from the human perspective. My pictures are often distorted, so much so that the plants do not look like real plants. If my photo does not describe the plant correctly, how can you identify the plant in the field? That's why my pictures are not suited for textbooks and field guides -- My pictures are not suitable for any "illustration" purposes, for my pictures are not an objective depiction of the subject.

When I wear a photographer's hat, however, I am not obligated to pursue an image that depicts a reality. On the contrary, CP images I create are intended to be my very personal, very subjective interpretation of the subjects.

Again, my photos are often a gross distortion from reality --- from a normal human perspective, that is. But when I think of plants -- particularly "CP" -- I think of how a tiny insect will see the plants: an insect's-eye view. Some of you may recall a movie "Fantastic Voyage" (1966). In this movie, an experimental technology was developed whereby a human could be shrunk to the size of a pin-head. A team of scientists thus reduced were injected into a patient's blood stream to fix some clot problem... When I take pictures of CP, I reduce myself to the size of, say, a fly or an ant... I wonder how the cobra plant would look like if I were a bee, how a VF would look like if you (ant) stand next to it. You will find that the size of a VF trap is about 10-feet long in Alice's Wonderland. The cobra plants towering skyward 100 feet.

A Bug's-eye view --- Come to think of it, this is a very appropriate perspective to seek, especially when it comes to CPs --- considering CPs have been co-evolving with insect communities for millions of years. If you seek an insect's perspective when observing CPs, you may be able to find something that you might have missed in your human perspective.

Makoto

[makoto]

In my Color print book, I noticed a few errors:

P.42 --- A large S. alata colony. In the caption, this was mis-identified as taken in Florida. It was in southern Mississippi. This type of habitat does not exist anymore in the southern part of the state.
P.45 --- S. leucophylla flowering scene was taken in "late April" (not in July).

Whenever I see other peoples' CP photos, I often wonder what time of the year the photo was taken. So that I can plan my trip to capture, say, flowers, at their best. So, in my book, I made sure to put location info(state) and the month of the year the photo was taken for all my photos in this photo book. (These errors are already corrected in the BW edition.)

[patriciahanson]

Wow! Just awesome and I really like these colorful shots, thanks.