I crawled in to a space inside the mangroves. Ensconced there, I sat on the sand, above low tide. Mangrove roots, and the mud they walked in, were one being. I could not tell if the tree roots went up or down. The spot was a quiet place to inhale the greenness. One could just be an silent animal, sitting within this short forest canopy.

An ibis flew overhead. Raccoon tracks trickled along the salty, muddy shoreline a few feet below me. A mockingbird landed, staring, from a perch on a mangrove branch nearby.  Mangrove crabs scuttled past.

This mangrove forest biome bordered a canal, one of a canal grid along this section of Florida's western shore. The sound of motorcycle engines came from a highway at one end of the forest, the roar dampened by the density of the trees. These red mangroves, one of 100 species called mangroves, protect the coast from erosion and storm surge. Their roots are home to many living creatures:  insects and spiders, reptiles, mammals, fish and birds. They are a source of blue carbon, carbon dioxide taken out of the atmosphere by coastal ocean ecosystems. Here in Port Charlotte's estuary, red mangroves are abundant. Dotting their roots, red berries of Brazilian pepper tree punctuated the greenery. I sat, relaxed in deep shade, exploring how pictures of the berries might look.

Bits of plastic and fishing line strands had washed up on shore from being tossed into the canal. While we may talk about pleasure boats,  does their pleasure mean throwing trash into the common waters? We humans do so quickly, without a backward glance, and then we motor on. Possibly I am as guilty; I took photographs, but only packed out my own lunch wrappers, being too lazy to pack out any other trash. A question came to me; was it morally repugnant to photograph a wild area that was home to many species, now surrounded by plastic, without cleaning any of it up? 
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Having no answer to that, I wiped the mud off the lens shade, climbed onto my one speed bike, and peddled back to our floating home, its roots also at home in the water.

In Florida Bay, sixty miles south of Miami, we anchor in six foot teal water depths. Off to port, there is a familiar tail clefting and swooshing the water's surface: a dolphin is pushing sand around on the bottom with its bottlenose, perhaps hunting a stone crab. A waning full moon dots the sky.

Rowing ashore against the current in our dinghy Dog Paddle: a kingfisher percusses out from the mangrove forest, an osprey call pierces out across the water from its nest atop a gumbo limbo tree. Two white ibis nibble by red mangroves along the shore. We walk down the dock to the historic home and hurricane shelter; the latter has walls a foot thick. The home itself was built by a Miami chemist. Its walls are made of coral reef material.  

Except for the osprey, the soundscape is quiet this Sunday morning. No rangers are working this morning on Lignumvitae Key, the highest land in the Florida Keys. We pay the park fee and walk a flat, mangrove-surrounded trail. This brings us close to banana spiders and their webs, which span the path we stroll. We pause, rest, and stroll back to the dock, and rowing home, black cormorants launch off a section of the closed dock and below them are hundreds of fish, hovering in a slight current. Portuguese man-o-war drift over shallows near the shore, where six ladyfish are motionless under the mangroves. On this calm, bright morning in the Florida Keys, we row back, stow the oars and greet a patiently waiting dog. The soundscape is broken by laughter.  

Q: Why do Photo Haiku ?
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Making photo haiku expands our awareness of small delights, pleasures and odd moments.  Writing haiku reframes our associations to our pictures. Photo haiku also boosts the impact of our photographs: words and pictures together have more power than either alone. We remember events more vividly when we write a poem about them. 

This is not your grandfather's poetry. Modern haiku is playful, social, and even witty. The structure of haiku is no longer bound to 17 syllables anymore. Nope, no more the old 5-7-5 rule that we were taught in elementary school. Photo haiku today is more spontaneous. It has an 'on the spot' lightness.

The haiku form also lends itself to travels with a camera. It's a challenge to pay attention deeply so that I write poems that harmonizes with the pictures I take on the road. Even years later, looking back on where I travelled, my hoto haiku helps me recall small events. Part of the reason is that like haiku, our photo haiku can include a seasonal word that anchors the time of year of the event or perception.
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Haiku: The Wordless Poem

Long called the “wordless poem,” hokku was linked to spiritual practice. The non-rhyming short poetry form began with scholars in China as hokku, then spread throughout Japan and  came to be called haiku in the 19th century.Traditionally, poets in China wrote to praise nature. Writing poetry was a social occasion. Later, Matsuo Basho, the most renowned Japanese haiku poet, devoted his spiritual life to writing poetry and prose. With his travels throughout Japan and his haiku wiring, Basho remindfully brings the distant past into the present. He explored northern Japan as a traveling priest and his poems from his journeys bring us a feeling of “lightness,” as his haiku summoned ideas from Zen practice such as wabi, sabi and solitariness. Basho's prose and poetry reflects experiences anyone can have everyday. Today, haiku is popular worldwide. 

Now, let's see how to make photo haiku - the How To of haiku.

How To Make Photo Haiku

Begin by observing a moment in time. Imagine the essence of what you feel and perceive. 
Use familiar, simple photo gear like your cell phone or point and shoot camera. Any subject or human relationship can become a haiku photograph. 

Think about the picture, and what you perceived, heard, or sensed. Write a short poem about the feeling you had. Your three line poem can be about what happened or what you imagined could have happened. Use direct, simple words. Think of a group of words that present what you observed in a way that appeals to the senses of touch, hearing and taste. Edit the poem so you "cut out the fat." Use present tense, not past tense.  


Apps and Photoshop for Photo Haiku

There are many apps to apply effects to pictures. I've tried Photo Artista Haiku effect. Downloaded, the app lets you easily change the appearance of a photo. If will not make you a haiku poet, but the effects are fun. 

PHOTOSHOP: Making Your Photo Haiku with 7 Steps in Adobe Photoshop

STEP 1: START. Open your photograph using File > Open.

STEP 2: Add your text. Click IMAGE > Canvas Size. Change width to 300 pixels wide. If your picture was 800 pixels, make the width 1200 pixels.

STEP 3 : Likewise, add 400 pixels to the height. Note that you can customize the canvas color by clicking Canvas extension color: drop-down menu at the bottom of the Canvas Size dialog box.

STEP 4: Click the Text Tool in the toolbox.
Select your font style from the upper toolbar.
Type in the text of your poem. If you want to move down a line, type 'enter" key on your keyboard.

STEP 5: Click Photoshop's check mark to commit your edits (the check mark is at the top of Photoshop's display, in the middle of the Options bar that runs horizontally across the top of the screen). To view your text layer, open the Layers palette by clicking WINDOW > Layers
( or type the fn key plus the f7 key).​

STEP 6: Position your poem by using the move tool in the toolbox.

STEP 7: FINISH. With the text and a picture on two layers, save the file as a .psd file type so you can edit it later (File > Save As). For instance, you may wish to change the color scheme, and this is easier with a Photoshop's .PSD file.

Bottom Line
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Haiku photography is thriving in the information age as people write haiku in 30 different languages. The rapid growth of digital photography inspires new forms of photo haiku. As a wave of younger artists publish diverse haiku photo work online, haiku photo will reach a global audience with fresh energy, centuries after it first emerged.

Links

HAIKU POETS HUT. For an index of haiku subjects from “inner glow” to “dragons” and a million other haiku, explore Shoji and other poets at Haiku Poets Hut. 

FACEBOOK. Join the haiku hut on Facebook .

WORLD HAIKU REVIEW. Find the official magazine of the World Haiku Club.

HAIKU BOOK. The Haiku Anthology , Third edition. Core van den Hoevel.

HAIKU: THE WORLD'S SHORTEST POEM. Youtube video that shows Japanese people in Tokyo spontaneously composing haiku on the street and references Basho and Shiki, two haiku poets.

In the back yard of my childhood home, a giant chestnut tree spread its limbs.
From far above me, its chestnuts fell and landed with a solid clonk. These gems were colored a deep brown. I gathered and polished them, leaving them in piles inside our family home on Council Crest, a hill known as "Portland's rooftop garden." This heavenly Oregonian chestnut tree inspired me to climb its relatives, photograph its kin and talk to many others. This year, I read Trees, a book by photographer Frank Horvat with an essay by John Fowles (1926-2005). The beauty of the book inspired this selection of quotes by Fowles, the famous novelist. . .

I am the siren, half-woman, half-bird. I am winged Leucosia, stroking with both oars as I sing of the water. I wield my Leica to weave images as I sing. A song-teller, I sing of the water that courses within. 

Crooning my siren song, I call to you.

My trill is peaceful. Leucosia lures you only so you know that all is well. Not like those old time wahines Scylla and Charybdis. My flowing hair floats, like the wavy clouds that drift above the creek now, as if they are pleased with my melodies and delighted, in the way of clouds, to be aloft at this moment in the pre-dawn of the Autumnal Equinox. 

I sing and feather my oars, sliding into the stillness of this creek to become one with the fog. I am a sole siren in this small boat. My powerful breasts are full of life and I lean back and stroke the oars. I sing in rhythm, with two oars as my wings. I am woman, wo-man, wo-man. Woman-singing, singing bird.

I am avian. I dream I spread both wings and fly up from this rowboat, letting go the oars to flap through fog to land in an ancient pine. There, I belch out a note, pushed out by my belly-full of minnows. Earlier, my strike was fast and sure. Now, a fishy tang tinges my notes, and I am singing off-key like some startled night heron.

My verse rises out over tannin-colored water  and echoes a touch of pink that is painting the clouds. These clouds seem completely still, until I look away and look back, and feel that they've moved without needing a gaze at all. My third verse touches dew drops of spider webs that drape over the tall grass. My last verse tickles the fur on the otter's back.

The water is still, marked only by oar-lifted bubbles behind the boat that, as if keeping rhythm, pop in time with the beat. Silent now, I have sung. Moments pass. Behind the clouds, the sky begin to glow. All is silent as the first sun rays lighten the living infinite.  

Many of us have looked skyward to see an osprey with a fish in its talons. The bird is probably looking too, but with different intentions. We may watch as our sushi is served to us, but an osprey must depend on its own keen vision to snare fresh fish.

An osprey excels at catching fish while on the wing. Its visual acuity is so keen, the bird sees six to eight times better than any humans at a distance. Osprey have evolved a set of visual skills that have allowed them to become the sole North American raptor to live on fish as their main food source.

I am sailing on the Choptank River on Chesapeake Bay. The bay the largest population of osprey in North America—about one quarter of all American osprey. In years past, the use of pesticides around the Chesapeake had a harmful effect on these birds. Fortunately, the ban on pesticides led to an increase in the number of osprey pairs. By the 1980's, there were about 2,000.

We almost caused this bird's extinction. Only a sustained conservation effort with a well-defined vision over decades saved the osprey. Fortunately, years of effort rescued these fine birds. After osprey were deemed a threatened species, dedicated groups of birders and conservationists worked to save them. As a result,osprey are thriving today. They live on every continent but Antarctica and migrate over long distances. An osprey nesting in Québec but wintering in southern Brazil may fly 120,000 miles during its 20-year lifetime. Osprey migration is a special wonder of the avian world.

While both the male and female osprey feed and care for their chicks, the female bird outweighs the male and is slightly larger. Osprey are devoted parents. Female osprey have between one and three eggs. Their eggs hatch in about a month in the order they were laid. Today we thrill to see an osprey plummet out of the sky, strike the water, fly up with a wriggling fish and then try to evade a dive-bombing eagle so it can feed young osprey on the nest.

Young osprey can leave their nest after only two months. Sometimes these juveniles return for several weeks to beg food from their parents until they can hunt on their own. In some areas, young osprey stay within their winter home grounds for an entire year, instead of going back to their breeding grounds. This might improve their chances of breeding when they finally return to the family nest area.

POLITICAL PERILS 

The osprey success story is threatened by a worrisome trend. Global wildlife populations have fallen by 58% in the last 50 years. This news is from the 2018 Living Planet assessment released by the Zoological Society of London and the World Wildlife Fund. If this trend continues, the decline will impact two-thirds of all vertebrates by the end of 2020.

To make matters worse, we are seeing the disastrous effects of our current administration’s policies, leading to costly environmental damage and species endangerment.

USA POLICIES WEAKEN PROTECTION

According to the New York Times in a July 19, 2019 article on the Endangered Species Act, "significant proposed change, which has been rumored since April when a proposal was posted to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, would alter how the Endangered Species Act deals with animals that are categorized as 'threatened,' or one level below ‘endangered.’ " 

This is important because government agencies are obligated to extend the laws protecting endangered species so that the protections cover threatened species (think about the osprey population in 1983). Changing these rules could take away some of these protections.

While weakening wildlife protections, the current administration is also waging a scandalous war on wildlife. The policies that have been implemented in 2019 are leading to the destruction of North American wildlife. Protections for endangered animals are being erased.

TAKE ACTION AND GET INVOLVED CLOSE TO HOME
To get involved in conservation photography, visit
https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Wild-Places/Chesapeake-Bay
​https://www.morganheim.com/ 
http://www.friendsofcapewildlife.org 

Photographers can get involved. We can work to benefit endangered species. We can learn how too many nutrients in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay are an important issue.

Let us keep our conservation vision and focus on making our work useful to birds like the osprey. By doing nature, travel and landscape photography, we can help create economic benefits to wildlife. 

To become a conservation photographer, start close to home. Check Facebook for Wildlife Protection groups. Find an endangered location or animal species. Choose one you can easily photograph. If you find out it needs protecting, tell others. Visit your site or animal often and photograph everything that makes it special.

Article and Photography by Jim Austin Jimages