Climate Change in Focus: The Story Behind the Image
I believe that there is a symbiotic relationship between painting and photography, an exchange of ideas.
The techniques, concepts, and inspirations from one medium often influence and enrich the other and in my photographic work, I sometimes draw upon what I have observed in paintings.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, a category 5 hurricane that struck the Florida Keys in 2017, I stumbled upon a scene in the fading light: a deer, lifeless in the path of nature's fury.
© Marko Kokic 2017
Vision
Despite the chaos surrounding it, the deer seemed to have found peace amid the tangled vegetation. I envisioned this scene as a painting and set out to photograph it in a way that evoked the spirit of a once-popular genre— the haunting tranquility of "still-life paintings of dead game."
Technique
I used several in-camera and postproduction techniques to achieve the desired aesthetic:
I framed the shot deliberately, highlighting the contrast between the tranquil deer and the turbulent backdrop.
I used the deer as the point of focus and further drew the viewer’s attention by surrounding it with some vignetting, darkening toward edge of the frame.
Using low depth of field, I blurred the vegetation in both the foreground and background and created the illusion of soft brushstrokes on canvas.
While editing, to reproduce the ambiance of dusk and evoke a distinct mood of melancholy and contemplation, I muted the scene’s colors with a colder cast and dimmed the overall brightness.
The Key Deer and Climate Change
With most of the Florida Keys barely above sea level, there was necessarily a climate change thread woven into this photo.
Research later revealed the vulnerability of this deer subspecies:
The endangered Key deer, the smallest subspecies of the North American white-tailed deer, are only found in the Florida Keys.
By the 1950s, poaching and the loss of habitat had brought the Key deer to the brink of extinction with only a few dozen remaining.
Since then, conservation efforts have helped their numbers grow to close to a thousand.
Like all endangered species, Key deer remain vulnerable to climate change, including the severe weather and rising sea levels it brings.
This photo was a finalist and received honorable mentions in three prestigious international photo competitions in 2018: the Head On Photo Festival, ND Photo Awards Contest, and Fine Art Photo Awards.
