“Be There”: Words of Wisdom for Photography, Life

Author captures dramatic photos of an osprey on the hunt, and harkens back to long-ago advice from world-renowned photographer

Recently, I was fortunate to capture on camera one of the most remarkable wildlife scenes I’ve ever witnessed — an osprey plunging into the surf and vanishing beneath the waves before emerging from the roiling ocean with a white sea bass clutched in its fearsome talons on the shores of the Silver Strand State Beach in Coronado, CA.

An osprey, cruising above the shores of the Silver Strand in Coronado, CA, spots something in the surf below. It wheels and plunges about 50 feet into the waves. (Photos by Craig K. Collins ©2023)

Notice that I said fortunate, not lucky.

That’s because early in my career I’d received some simple advice from a world-renowned photographer that I took to heart. Not only did I immediately apply this advice to my photographic endeavors, but I quickly discovered that it worked wonderfully in various aspects of my personal and professional life as well.

Early in my career, I started out as a journalist and was fortunate (there’s that word again) to occasionally be assigned to write ski travel stories for a major daily newspaper. An avid photographer, I would always bring my camera. To my dismay, I almost always proved to be a much better writer, skier and après ski bon vivant than a photographer. My photographic production was never better than so-so.

The osprey remains submerged for a full minute as two-to-three-foot waves crash overhead. It finally pops out of the roiling water before spreading its wings, catching a wave, and surfing into shore. (Photos by Craig K. Collins ©2023)

It was during a trip to Switzerland, that I was fortunate (again that word) to spend three days on the slopes with the previously mentioned ski photographer. After a long day of skiing and photographing the action on the slopes of a resort near Zermatt, the photographer and I retired to the lodge, ordered drinks and relaxed by the fire.

Check out my latest article The Time of the Painters in the Winter 2023 edition of Hidden Compass Magazine about my trip aboard a mule down a cliff-clinging trail into a 3,000-foot-deep canyon in central Baja to view and photograph Mexico’s Great Mural cave…