Nature’s Witness: Into the Light

A great blue heron gracefully glides through the Florida Everglades

Photograph by Marc Harris
PhotoZone
Aug 01, 2018

PIERCING THROUGH A FLEETING PATCH OF EARLY LIGHT, a great blue heron passes a grove of mangrove trees in the Florida Everglades. “I call this image ‘Twilight,’” says photographer Marc Harris, who caught this frame just before sunrise as a few rays of light filtered through the trees to illuminate the bird’s face while others reflected off the canal below to light its tail.

Harris prefers to capture wildlife very early or late in the day, in “those brief moments when light rays bend across the Earth’s atmosphere, creating natural blue and golden hues.”

This image became the signature frame in an exhibit Harris mounted this year in Florida called “Birds of the Everglades.” Though public attention to his work is gratifying, he says, “the goal of my photography is to raise conservation awareness.”

Born in rural Tennessee, Harris “always had a connection with the outdoors.” Today, he hopes to “pass along a personal, emotional connection with nature through art and awareness.”