jsjones

Profile

Amphibians | Reptiles | Birds | Mammals
Flora | Fauna
Landscapes | Waterscapes | Abstracts
Alaska | Alberta | Colorado | Florida | Montana | Oklahoma

I am a Floridian living in Alaska, having traded gators for moose and sandals for socks. By trade, I’m a college English instructor, pedagogically focusing on Technical and Professional writing. Outside of work, I’m an avid naturalist and a student of photography.

Ever since my early days of tangling through the brush and vines of central Florida as a child, I’ve had a deep passion and curiosity for the natural world around me. I’ve particularly been drawn to the implied narratives of these animals’ lives. The untold stories of the day-to-day life, so to speak.

Now that I’m in Alaska, I have an entirely new world to begin learning. Everything is different, from the light to the ground beneath my feet. In a way, I feel like a child again. Every single day presents a new lesson, a new experience. I am in awe of Alaska.

Janson, http://floridana.typepad.com

Code of Ethical Conduct

1. My work is (unless otherwise noted) completely digital. In fact, I like to call it Digitography, as it functions differently than standardized photography in both the production and post-production spheres. All photographs have been digitally edited in one degree or another. Usually there’s some contrast adjustments and there’s almost always either color-correction or color enhancement. If the sides of the photograph are blurry, it’s not because I put vaseline on my lens. It’s because I edited it that way… Please feel free to ask me for clarifications on post-editing, if necessary. I have no problem in responding to these queries, but I typically don’t outline the steps involved with each photograph.

2. Proclamation of Time & Space. I will always provide geotemporal contexts to all photographs taken, within reason. I’m a firm believer in providing context for photographs and will always post the date and the location a photograph was taken, within reason. If you would like further clarification regarding a specific photograph, please feel free to contact me!

3. Wild or Captive? You can assume that all animals featured in my photographs are wild animals (non-caged, non-captive) unless otherwise noted. And I will always annotate if and when an animal is photographed in a zoo or some other controlled environment. This is more about providing the respect deserved to the zoo or institution that maintains the animals’ well being. Many of the snakes featured in my work were actually caught in the wild for the photography session, and then re-released after ten minutes or so. I still consider these to be wild animals.

4. I do not harm or injure animals when photographing them. Amazingly, I heard horrific stories of what people will do to animals in the wild in order to photograph them. I’ve heard stories of lizards being taped, of snakes being glued… All in order to get “that perfect shot”. Though I do catch and handle these animals, I do not and will not harm them under any circumstances in order to get “the shot”. I consider such behavior to be fundamentally unethical and brutally dishonest.

5. Admission of my Professionally Amateur status as both a digitographer and as an environmental expert. I am an English instructor. I teach composition. I am not a scientist, an “artist”, a wildlife expert, and so on. Though I do enjoy studying issues of geology, herpetology, zoology, photography, and even the occasional smathering of entropy & thermodynamics, I do not consider myself an expert in any of these fields. Thus, you should approach my comments and observations as just that: comments. Observations. Perspectives. Definitely not “Truth”. If you see an error (in identification or otherwise), please let me know!!! Digitography is a means of education for me and I appreciate the support wherever I can find it. (Or, wherever it finds me.)