 Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for North Central Minnesota, produced by Lakeland PBS with host Ray Gildow. Production funding for Lakeland Currents is made possible by Bemidji Regional Airport, serving the region with daily flights to Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport. For information available at BemidjiAirport.org. Closed captioning for Lakeland Currents is sponsored by Niswa Tax Service, tax preparation for businesses and individuals online at NiswaTax.com. Hello again everyone and welcome to the 12th season of Lakeland Currents. We're very happy that you're with us and if you've watched Lakeland Currents on a regular basis you know that we not only shoot the program here in the in the Brainerd studio, we also shoot it in the Bemidji Show studio rather. But this is our 12th season and happy to be back and looking forward to a season of interesting programming and I don't think it's going to be more interesting than the one today where we have an internationally known photographer, outdoor writer Bill Marshall who is from the Brainerd area and it's a great honor to have Bill back. He was on our show a number of years ago and since he's been here lots lots has changed in the wildlife world and a lot has changed in the the world of publications and printing and so we're gonna we're gonna talk a little bit about that. Bill, welcome to the program. Thanks Ray. It's great to have you back again. Thank you. Let's tell the viewers a little bit about who you are, where you came from and how you got started because you are for the most part self-taught at what you do aren't you? Yeah yeah you know I grew up in North Brainerd close to the Mississippi River and only a block and a half and as kids we you know would go down there and mess around slingshots, bows and arrows and fishing and got to really appreciate nature that way and for some reason it was just always a fascination for me so I you know I would I would try to learn about everything try to understand bird books and everything when I was just a kid and that just kind of progressed through my life but it wasn't until 1981 that I bought my first real camera and you know at the time of course it was film the back then and you know I remember signing the loan my hand was shaking because it was like worth four times what my vehicle was worth you know so yeah it was so you had a good camera to start with right right and then you know having been an outdoor person all my life I had an idea of what a good photo was like even though I was green at it you know I thought I you know I know what a good image is because I've looked at them all my life I've never had never taken them all the very day I got the camera in the mail was in the wintertime I went out and and have got some halfway decent deer pictures that very first day and things just progressed from there you know I had worked or had a normal job regular job eight hours a day and gradually I started reducing that down to half time and then pretty soon I realized that I was making more money working at home and enjoying it of course and so I made the switch to full-time freelance and you know whatever 25 30 years ago and I've been there ever since and you were saying before we went on air that back in that period of time there were really only about 12 people that were doing what you were doing for a living nationally I mean that wasn't that everybody had the skill or the ability to do what you guys were doing right and you know when I say 12 it's like if you if you looked at Ducks Unlimited and some of the more popular hunting and fishing magazines especially hunting even nature publications like National Wildlife or Autobahn yeah there was a real core of people and Ducks Unlimited for instance would contact myself and you know half a dozen other people and if they couldn't get what they needed from us then they would go look further from somebody else but usually since we are interspersed around the whole country they could find what they wanted with just that core of people and it was really nice because you know just about guaranteed to have images in every magazine and covers included even their advertising work so what were some of the magazines you published with over the years well just about every what I call hook and bullet that would be you know sports field outdoor life sports the field is one that I haven't I don't think because they have a little different look they're kind of a I don't know safari type magazine you know big exotic hunt type magazines and fishing field and stream out their life you know deer and deer hunting national wildlife autobahn those are the ones I'm most proud of you know the the nature really high quality stuff in those magazines right yeah very high quality yeah and you know the first time I really tried autobahn I ended up selling them a cover photo and 12 images inside that magazine and one of the images was a a nominee for an IZ award which at that time was Life magazine's most prestigious photography award yeah it was a nominee it didn't I didn't win but it was a nominee anyway and that was pretty exciting for me so when you first started doing your photography did you focus in on one particular kind of animal or were you looking for everything well you know since I've hunted all my life I concentrated on those species and ducks you know deer those were my two biggest things to start with and because we have those locally and you know then I knew them too and I also knew the publication so I knew the type of images that they would be buying and you know I had the gear everything toward that you know there wasn't a lot of just go out and shoot anything you know it was always had almost always had a purpose you know and that helped me a lot so you would get an assignment and then go try well not so much an assigned my own assignment I'm looking at my markets and say I can't go outside that because it's I won't make any money if I if I go beyond the markets that I'm used to where for instance I don't do much landscape photography even though I'm out there and see all those cool landscapes you know or flowers or plants you know I just don't do much of that because I don't I never established a market in that area so I kind of concentrated on you know pretty much wildlife and you've done billboards you've said yeah bill just about anything you can think of all the way from credit cards to t-shirts really credit cards credit cards yeah I still have some at home I don't know if they're any good or not there or phone cards is what they I have at home yeah you know the slide through phone cards they're like 20 years old or whatever I don't know if they're any good but yeah I can't even you know if you can imagine a picture being on something I probably sold one time or another I know you have a large buck on our license plates do you want to talk a little bit about how that happened yeah that was really fun for me I love wandering through the woods in the fall with rattling antlers and grunt call and during the rut and this particular spot I came to and I thought this is the wind angle and the sun angle everything was good for rattling and and I started to rattle the antlers and I there's kind of a rise and I see this set of antlers coming up you know that's all I could see at first you know and I'm like oh man this is neat and it came over the rise and you know a lot of times they hear the camera clicking you know they can hear that on a calm day a long way away so it's kind of focused on me and then what they always do when they're a little leery is glance downwind you know their eyes and their ears tell them one thing but their nose will tell them what they need to know and sure enough I took a couple shots and then it started to glance down how far away was this 25 yards oh wow really cool it was a beautiful animal if people don't know what we're talking about it's still on the license plates right for people who elect to critical habitat critical habitat and it's the big buck right yeah yeah there's the art buck or art deer that's this is a photograph yeah and so did you get the picture the first time the first shot yeah yeah you had you know that's what's with deer you know it's almost do or die you know once they start glancing downwind it's it's over you know and sure enough it did that and you know it's pretty much had that predicted that it would do that and because they always do and yeah it didn't work out it was and I you know when they announced they were going to do a whitetail deer plate you know I that was one of the images that I submitted and one that made it wow now will that stay there you know as far as I know and no I don't get any no royalties anymore it was a one-time deal so because they have a moose and they have birds and they have a water scene yeah there's quite a few now Moose State Park you know the lady slipper chickadee anglers the anglers in the bold and you know several others but it's a neat deal because that's 30 bucks goes to that's a good you know $30 extra to get the plate yeah yeah I've often wondered how close you were when you took that shot yeah and it's always way closer than people think you know you I think one of the one reason why people think I can zoom in clear across a lake or whatever it's because sports stadiums you know you had a watch in a football game and the camera's on the crowd and then it zooms right into you know the quarterback column and play you know and it's like with the same lens well that's not possible with 35 millimeter stuff you know so how about the writing part of what you do because you write for a number of organizations how did you get started to that and were you comfortable right off the get go no but you know one thing that helped in my writing was again the knowledge that I had I knew what I was talking about not because well because I had research I researched everything always finding out or not even just researching it by reading but researching it by you know witnessing these things and figuring it out and that's how I learned to photograph too you know learned how to operate camera gears you know no schooling or anything just knowing what I needed to do with it and same with writing it's like okay how do I want to illustrate this story both with photos and with my words and it kind of flows I guess kind of wasn't that tough for me and you know I could be a lot more artistic so to speak in writing but I kind of like to present the facts and then you know hopefully it's written well enough where the reader wants to keep reading but more meat and potatoes writing than it is fancy freely sure writing yeah so when you because I know you're right for the Star Tribune and you've written many times for the brain or dispatch do they usually solicit an idea or do you bounce ideas off them yeah it's almost exclusively my ideas yeah once in a while like with the Star Tribunal converse with the editor and see you know I got this idea or that idea and usually it's a goal yeah and that same with the outdoor magazines you know I come up with an idea and present it to them and you know that it kind of goes from there and not very often do I get an assignment to do something what you do takes an incredible amount of patience I don't know if people appreciate how much time you spend and I've talked with Stan Tequila who is also a friend of yours and and we've talked with him about how sometimes you'll spend days in a blind and nothing happens you have your own property where you do some of the photography do you go other places too and then do you set up blinds and are you looking for specific things because you know they're in the area how do you approach that yeah it's again the knowledge of your subject is huge you know and you can eliminate a lot of empty time by knowing the subject when they move when they don't how to call them in how to attract them what kind of habitat they're in and so you know as far as three days in a blind and get nothing that doesn't happen very often because I've already got it scouted out I've got to you know know the location kind of have an idea of when the birds or mammals might be moving and so I can limit my time you know when the light is good morning or evening and you know now sitting in a blind all day hoping something happens is not something I do very often and you know as far as you know photographing on my land that's kind of nice because I can my office window looks right at right out on everything and I got ponds and thousands of trees planted the fruit bearing and not bearing trees and everything to attract wildlife so sometimes I'll see something going on out my office window and then the next day I can take advantage of that and yeah wildlife isn't on a clock but a lot of times if something's happened that like say eight o'clock this morning there's a good chance that something similar might be going at eight o'clock tomorrow morning so I can set up a blind today and then being at eight o'clock tomorrow morning and you know by ten o'clock if nothing's happened I might just leave and it's got to be at times a lonely job oh really because you're alone all the time when you do and even when I'm home you know because you know a home office you know you're alone in the office and then alone in the field all the time that is that's a big thing and it's I'm not just the only one a lot of my colleagues talk about that too yeah it's a lonely job I can imagine it is now you've won many national awards talk a little bit about the Nikon awards because I know you've won a number of those yeah um there's a organization called Nikonians and it's a worldwide organization of Nikon camera owners and they have a monthly online contest which I don't have the numbers in front of me I believe there's 40 000 hits per day on that website yeah and uh I'm not sure positive about that number but an incredible amount of people and go and you know Nikon is one of the top two camera companies in the world so you know if probably you know half of us wildlife photographers are shooting Nikon the other half can and then a few others in between but so yeah it gets a lot of hits and what happens is they have a theme every month and I submit an image as you can submit five per month and follows that theme like they might action or something wildlife and action might be a theme and you submit images like that and then the general public votes on it for the month and then out of that five finalists are taken and then then they voted on out of those five finalists and so and how many times have you won that well you know it's been quite a few times actually I've been fortunate worldwide yeah um I don't know maybe 10 times wow eight or 10 times wow that's right now I'm a finalist um for the September you know it would be the August contest we vote on it during September I'm a little bit behind so I don't think I'll get first place but it looks like a shoe in for second place wow that's pretty impressive let's talk a little bit about your your pictures because you've got some really good images here and some really important information for anybody who wants to take pictures I think you could give us some really important tips today yeah I tried to tried to pick out seven or eight photos that that showed various aspects of wildlife photography action you know beauty low light or whatever um I've got a picture of a wood duck in flight is one of them and and um there's so much to that that that people don't understand and wood duck has a lot of iridescent colors the male wood duck has iridescent colors and those colors are only visible in a couple degrees angle of light you know they're you know iridescence is tiny prisms on each feather and when the light hits it just right like a um when they call those little things in your um that you hang in the window that you know flash little colors that's what it's like the light has to come in and hit those iridescent feathers just light right otherwise they look dark or black and so this wood duck flying sideways to the camera the light in the afternoon is just right and the way that is able to work is that or make that work is that they fly into the wind when they take off and they land into the wind when they come in so if the wind is the right angle they'll be coming across in front of the camera at the right angle where the this iridescence will light up beautiful birds they are absolutely and that's one thing that I like about um you know getting that the image like this is that it shows the beauty one or two different angle degrees difference and the colors are almost gone wow yeah and um and that's true of iridescent birds some of the other ones are like cardinals or whatever they're not iridescent so um the angle can be different with them and you still get a bright red but um you know ducks in particular have iridescent feathers wow that's a great great image and then you know it you gotta be swinging with them you know it's pan panning the camera at the same speed as a bird so that it remains in focus wow like a little bit of wing blur because that shows motion you know it doesn't look like it's a mounted bird up in the air because there's some wing blur and you know you have to know the shutter speeds for to accomplish that and then the depth of field the settings on your camera it is I will say this it's a lot easier now with digital than it was in film you know I shoot in 50 speed film and now I shoot up 400 or 800 ISO and so I gain like four or five stops of light just by shooting digital now so that helps a ton in photograph and action and then I like to photograph white tails deer in the during the rut and I got a picture of a real nice 10-point buck just facing the camera so close up you know I rattled that one until I could see it and then it's you know since rattling you're moving your hands and I was kind of just standing behind a tree with a tripod and you're so I can't do that when they're coming in because they'll see me so then I switched to a grunt call and uh it just kept coming it just kept coming and coming and coming and coming and then I'm like hold stop stop it got so close that all I could get was a head and neck how close was that oh um 10 12 yards wow and you know I had a zoom lens so I was able to zoom back a little bit as it was coming but um you know it just wouldn't stop I wanted to hear you then when you took the picture yeah and you can see in the so you got one picture and that's it staring right at you know you might get a couple off before it bolts you know but uh yeah and then the same thing it wants to go work its way downwind you know and so when it ran it not only ran away but it you know it angled downwind and then got my son and then it's sure that that's a you know not a good deal it's going to get vacate the area was that on your property no no yeah that's a beautiful animal um and the next shot that I have is another buck but it's taken in a whole different situation in velvet this one is one in velvet and they're obviously that time of the year this is the last day in august I believe and it's a giant eight well it's a nine point but it has huge huge antlers one of the nicest bucks I've ever seen in my life and uh and this I had to build a blind in a in an oak savannah that had a burroke savannah and the acorns were dropping so um it would not respond to antler rattling at that time of the year or grunting or anything you just have to hope that they come into a feeding area and that's what makes this image pretty unique for me is that you know it's like it is a crapshoot to be out there at that time and you know it was 80 degrees that day oh wow yeah and um and I watched I was sitting in the blind looking and I thought boy if that if a deer comes it'd be nice if it stood between those two trees and that's exactly exactly what that's a great shot to and I shot to it's way lower lower light than it appears I actually shot it at one fourth of a second not at one four hundred it's one fourth of a second and I had to lock the mirror up on the camera because in a single reflex camera the mirror flops up and down every time you take a picture well that vibrates the camera and causes blur at slow shutter speed so I locked the mirror up then you can't see you got focus locked the mirror up take a shot and then it would always it would step it came a half a step closer every time I took a picture did it because I couldn't figure out the sound and I was in the blind so it was a home built blind out of brush and sticks and whatever and uh yeah so every time I take a step I have to drop the mirror back down refocus pull the mirror back up and shoot with a cable release too because if you touch the button at that speed everything wobbles and it's blurry yeah and you can see every you know whisker on its face and eyelashes and everything and the velvet you know fuzz on the out there's just you know that's very cool and I love that photo and and it was one that I specifically set out to do too I'd seen that buck at sunset the day before and I thought I got to do this while the doing's good once those burrow gay coins are gone he's gone he's gone yeah yeah and people always like cute photos and I this summer I had three baby raccoons coming in my yard to the bird feeders every day and I don't know I never did see mom I don't know where she was but they were real cute little things and and they uh were you know eating under the bird feeder and then they'd climb up in a big burrow in my yard and they'd go to sleep sometimes laying on top of each other right next to each other so I was able to get that picture you were pretty close to those two are yeah that's you know that they were just right there I could get as closer as far as I wanted to they weren't really afraid of me they would run up the tree when I walked out of the house but otherwise you know once they're in the tree they feel safe yeah yeah that's cool and then you know I weather is always a factor in wildlife photography and sometimes you know you like the good sun bright sun like iridescent feathers show up good but I always like to photograph too in bad weather and I have a picture of a male cardinal and crab apple tree with the snow coming down and the snow on the branches and kind of a gray day with a bright red bird is kind of a neat situation it wasn't that long ago we didn't see many cartons around our country but they're really becoming quite common aren't they and that's pretty beautiful bird yeah absolutely beautiful bird their song is great and you know real wary though they're hard to photograph yeah they're jump jumpy yeah black bear is something that you know I really don't go after because the chances are you won't you know if you've spent time in the woods trying to photograph a black bear good luck but I once in a while do get lucky I'm out for deer or whatever and have one walk up or something like that or one comes into the yard to eat bird seed and and then you know I'll follow it back out in the woods and stay a distance so it doesn't know I'm there and once in a while get photographs that way and then coyotes there's three coyotes that's kind of unusual isn't see three together yeah yeah three together I did call on time five together yeah that was really unusual but three of them came in and it's really funny because they're looking right at me I was blowing on a predator call which is simulates a dying rabbit and they're looking at me like I'm lunch you know and it's just like I love the stare on their eyes they're all looking and of course right after that they bolted now how close were those two they were a little further because they're spread apart they were like 35 40 yards yeah it was close yeah yeah wow it's fun to have them that close they're they're a neat animal yeah they are yeah then I got a picture of a mink here's another kind of cute shot and I got lucky that's one of the reasons I included this is that I was photographing ducks from a blind long edge of a pond and just by pure luck I see this mink coming the grass was too tall when the mink was on the ground well running along the ground or it got close to my blind and was curious and then stood up on its back feet just again you know I got to say it's kind of lucky but the fact that I was there you know definitely helps so that's cute very good shot we're down to our last two minutes okay uh indigo bunting there again that's beauty a beauty shot you know that is a beautiful bird you don't have to be you know it doesn't have to be in any particular surrounding to have that pretty but in this case it was on a newly blossoming crab apple trees and are they they let you get pretty close to them no they're jumpy too you got to be careful blind only a blind can you photograph him yeah that's a beautiful bird well tell us how people can get a hold of you you have your own website yes and you are on www.billmarshall.com I maintain a facebook page just about post an image just about every day and you can get the url to that on my website and my email address and I also am on twitter um but uh yeah and you know again posting an image every day on facebook is a good way for people to get an idea and you know they also can go to my website of course and I like how you have little quizzes to see people oh yeah that's fun for me too yeah that is cool um what's your new project anything new big coming up no except i'm you you know thinking about the whitetail rut you know it's coming soon late october and really november well thanks for appearing on the show we really appreciate it thank you very beautiful beautiful work that you do and if you get a chance folks go to his website and you'll see some unbelievable images uh you've been watching lakeland currents where we're talking about what you're talking about we'll see you next time