RE: NANFA-L-- Photograph and Release

Dave Neely (rheopresbe-in-hotmail.com)
Wed, 29 Mar 2006 23:22:55 -0600

Hi Todd,

While the phoquaria works great to get life colors, it's hard getting fish
to position themselves nicely for a publication quality photo.

The rectangle-tanks work great for little fish too if you take another piece
of glass and position it in a v against the front of the tank. You can hold
it in place with binders clips. Fritz knows his stuff - this is basically
the same setup that Bob Jenkins used for his Virginia tome. If you knock 'em
out with clove oil, you can get really good photos (and the fish recover
pretty well) - but if you sacrifice the fish and take the time to
formalin-fix the fins out, man they look nice!

I just got back from a couple weeks of kicking around Texas and Chihuahua,
and dragged a photo tank along with me. Great for photos on a pickup truck
tailgate, streamside way back in the boonies. Many neat fish. I'll send you
a couple cool pics to post...and I hope to have some other stuff to donate
to the auction. More on that later...

cheers,
Dave

>Derek is on the track here... Those rectangles are great for suckers and
>big
>cyprinids like full sized stonerollers and Nocomis chubs. However, I think
>they loose a lot of flexibility with smaller fishes, and I figure I might
>as
>well just use a 2.5 gallon, like Dennis and Bill mentioned, and get the
>depth
>with rocks and such, which can make it look like you shot it in the stream.
>
>However... There is another. I call it the "Dave Neely Flying V". It's
>basically two panes angled away from each other with supports on both ends.
>Probably not hard to build if you're handy with that kind of stuff. Maybe
>we
>can even talk the good Dr. Neely into donating a couple to the auction-in-
>the
>convention this year <wink wink nudge nudge> Anyway.
>
>http://www.nanfa.org/members/crail/neely/ (of course, if you'd like your
>own
>directory Dave, just holler)
>
>I've seen similar things in stores for little planters. Wasn't thinking
>right
>when I just walked past them :)
>
>As for taking stuff home... And then putting it back. I dunno. I'd rather
>euthenize a single specimen than potentially compromise a whole wild
>population (if I didn't want to keep it, which has yet to occurr ;). The
>fish
>is biologically dead regardless of what you do with it-in-home, so putting
>it
>down isn't any different. And clove oil treatments are so gentle, it
>doesn't
>have to be a horrible experience.
>
>If that still doesn't sit right with you... :)
>
>There's also the option of photographing on the bank, which isn't as
>convenient than-in-home, but it works, and may be your only ethical or
>semi-lawful option on species in peril. I would caution you to pay strict
>attention to contamination issues and bleach out your photo tank if you've
>had
>home fish in it before you put fish to be released into it. I always put
>my
>old substrate somewhere that's "tainted material" and start with fresh sand
>or
>stream substrates when doing wild shots as well, instead of trying to
>bleach
>it.
>
>Todd
>The Bleach Madness, Toledo, OH
>It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
>http://www.farmertodd.com
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