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Jess McGlothlin Media
New Workshop Announcement!
Come join me at the Denver, Colorado, Fly Fishing Show on Saturday, January 20, 2024 for a new, hands-on fishing photography workshop. Pre-registration is required; here are the details:
Capture Better Fishing Photos With Jess McGlothlin
Join international fly-fishing photographer and writer Jess McGlothlin for a workshop designed to help you better your fishing and travel photography. Shooting with your phone? That’s okay! Bring your phone, point-and-shoot, DSLR… whatever camera you have. You’ll come away with increased knowledge, skills, and a few handy tips and tricks to help you take better photos on the water.
All levels are welcome.
Thoughts on Thanksgiving
It’s Thanksgiving today here in the States, and I’m using the rare time at home base to give the year a little review. It’s been a whirlwind (and with more travel coming in up December, it’s not over yet!). The overwhelming theme as I dig through images, notes, and video clips from his year is overwhelming gratitude, which I suppose fits for a Thanksgiving note. Sure, I’m grateful for the images made, stories penned, and the fish caught along the way, but most of all I’m grateful for the people I’ve been able to meet and work alongside in these awesome places. The people who make it all happen.
There’s a certain breed of people out there who are happiest out in the far corners of the world, doing their thing. Vibrant souls who tend to be remarkably steady, balanced with a good dose of wild.
Perhaps it’s a result of being so close to the edge of the world, but the paradoxical sensation of so much peace—and feeling so alive—is impossible to ignore.
And it’s impossible to ignore the people who understand it.
So thanks to everyone who I’ve been able to work with this year. Thanks for the conversations around campfires, boat launches, dozens of airports, lodge lounges, and more than one gravel bank in the near middle of nowhere. Thanks for the nights we tried to solve the world’s problems over too much local booze and—just for a moment—it seems like we might know a thing or two. Keep on doing what you’re doing. Keep on living on the edges, and reveling those quiet moments.
So thanks to the crew in the trenches: the guides, cooks, lodge teams, airport desk staff, customs agents, and everyone else who makes it all work. There’s no way I can fit all your pictures in this post, though I sure wish I could. I’m grateful for you.
Stats Breakdown: The Past 11 Weeks on the Road
The past months have been a sprint. Some of it you’ve seen here on social media, some of it you haven’t. It’s been a mix of jobs—some fishing, some not fishing—airports, camera gear, fly rods, medical kits, and endless words jotted out onto various documents. Emails and editors and clients and customs agents.
Here’s a brief look at a some of the good, the bad, and the ugly:
– 1x Someone breaking into my quarters while I was sleeping (Of note, this happened on a non-fishing job. Which I’m taking as a sign that I should do more fishing work, and less of the other.)
– 1x Me breaking into a rental house when we were locked out
– 9 Dives into the medical kit
– 6 Countries
– 7 Client shoots
– 5 Personal best fish
– 7 New species
– 42 Airplane flight legs
– 13 Helicopter flight legs
– 21 Boat transfer legs
– 2 Bags lost by airlines
– 200 Dollars won in a self-tourniquet contest in a hotel bar
– 2 Fast-tracks through customs
– 13 Published stories (more coming soon)
– Way too many bad coffees in airports
There’s more travel yet to come in 2023, and 2024 is shaping up to be a pretty good adventure as well. Thank you to all the clients, guides, editors, and everyone who makes this work possible—you make it all happen!
Image: Transfers, jungle style, with a pass through Oromomo Village. Last week in Bolivia with Tsimane Lodge.
Moving On From 2022
There’s a lot to be said about 2022, a lot of which I’d rather never say.
I worked with some of the best teams of my career—and a couple of the worst. There’s no time for plain incompetency.
Signed a few new clients who are utter rock stars. You know who you are. Thank you.
Was reminded that family isn’t necessarily who shares your blood, but more so your beliefs. Immensely thankful to be united with some of the latter this year.
Made new friends who I knew would be chosen family within a day of meeting them—even as we were running around the woods and working a job. Beyond grateful for chosen family.
Got burned by people who I thought were as interested in having me in their lives as I was them in mine. So I re-learned how to move on.
Shot fewer images than I have in years past, yet sold a higher number of those I shot. Market honing.
Was reminded that cultivating relationships in third-world airports can really be a lifesaver. Sometimes literally.
Caught a few good fish—and lost the biggest one of my career.
Watched a good friend die. And buried another.
Learned that life’s too short to work with people who don’t value what you bring to the table.
Got cursed out at Thanksgiving dinner. Walked way from it.
Learned I really can work for a month straight with less than six hours sleep a night and still function. Mostly.
Logged more than 70 hours in various airport lounges, and filed who knows how many stories from them, fueled by machine-made espresso shots.
Had my eyes opened to a few new corners of the world, one of which may be my new HQ.
2022 was a strange year and, to be honest, a rough one. I won’t be sorry to see it go, and am excited for whatever 2023 throws my way.
Here’s to moving on with life.
Gear Care and Maintenance 101
Outdoor photography, by its very definition, takes place, well… outdoors.
And the outdoors are dusty. And muddy. Sandy. Gritty. Windy. Wet. Damp. Humid. Icy. Smoldering.
None of which present “ideal” operating conditions for camera equipment.
One of the most common questions I get is how I manage gear in the field, keeping it functional and operating at peak capacity when conditions are tough. The care and keeping of camera gear varies with every shoot as the conditions are different, but here’s a look at my basic daily cleaning routine in the field, as well as upkeep maintenance I do upon returning from a shoot.
Camera Bodies / Lenses
Especially on saltwater or very dusty shoots, cameras and lenses are wiped down with a damp washcloth each evening. Lenses and filters are cleaned and swabbed dry, and if needed a bulb blower is used to remove dirt and dust from crevices. Camera bags are dried if they got wet throughout the day.
Every night I upload image files from my memories cards into Lightroom, and back up in triplicate before clearing / reformatting the memory card. Batteries are charged up if needed. And it’s all left to air-dry a bit before being packed and prepared for the next morning.
Drone
The drone presents a love / hate relationship. Logging flight plans and following international import laws means there is no time to slack. Before leaving for any shoot, I always perform a check flight at home, then do another upon arriving at the shoot location to ensure nothing was damaged in travel. My drone spends a fair bit of time crossing the equator, which seems to mess with the compass settings. That’s a frequent reset / reconfigure routine.
Remember, know your equipment. Know its temperament and common issues… it helps troubleshoot things like this in the field.
On a recent international shoot, my drone was roughed up a bit by customs and I was getting odd error messages in the field, after a clean test-flight at the lodge. I’ve spent the past week stripping all the software off, reinstalling, and reformatting the whole thing. That’s also involved a lot of test flights, diagnostics, and all those things that take a lot of time but are a part of the package.
In the field, the drone gets a minor version of the DSLR’s nightly routine. Wipe down, inspect for dual damage, clean lens and filters, ensure batteries and controller are charged for the next day. Especially in saltwater climates, sunscreen, high humidity, and saltwater don’t make for a terribly LiPo (lithium polymer) battery-friendly environment.
Speaking of those LiPo batteries. The batteries are notoriously volatile, and don’t do well in very hot environments. (Like a 100+F flats boat.) Keep them in the shade when possible… keep them cool. Rotate through your stock; don’t always use the same battery and keep the others as backup. I have mine labeled numerically, and note in my flight log which battery was used, and to what percentage it was drained to. It’s a good way to ensure rotation and also track potential problems.
Underwater Housing
I use an AquaTech underwater housing, and have been largely quite happy with it. It’s durable, allows good adjustments within reason, and has held up to storms, sharks, and other shit. It also requires a bit of love.
The housing is rinsed meticulously after each day in the field. If I’m some place with a shower, it comes in the shower with me for a good rinse, and all the buttons are pressed to ensure fresh water gets in every little nook and cranny. Very occasionally, I’ll use a small amount of silicone grease on the controls to keep them smooth and happy. Even less occasionally, the o-rings in the housing and dome port get a very light coating of grease as well.
The dome is cleaned and polished every night inside and out. Each morning as I load the camera in, a good sprinkling of silica gel packets to help manage any moisture that might get inside.
Computer, Hard Drives, and Other Gear
Travel’s not easy on any gear. Even though they log less time on the water and in the field, cameras and hard drives still take a beating. I keep my laptop in a padded neoprene sleeve, which is a very basic effort to prevent sliding injuries in various airport security lines around the world. It helps.
I’ve also run a strip of gaffer tape along the spine of my laptop to help keep out dust and other debris.
Overall, just use common sense with your electronics. Don’t handle them with excessively salty or dirty hands. Wipe them off every now and then. Watch condensation if you’re going from air conditioning into a humid, hot environment often. Cushion it when you can.
Gear is meant to be used. It’s going to get dinged up and maybe even broken. But with a little extra maintenance, we can tip the odds a little more in our favor that it’ll perform when needed in the field. Besides, there’s something cathartic about wiping off the hard-earned dust and dirt from a shoot gone well.
Take care of your gear, and it’ll take care of you.
Even Photographers Fish
Sometimes, on rare, special occasions, the photographer gets to fish. And it’s a wonderful thing.
Last week in Belize I got to sneak out from behind the camera.
Image: courtesy of Robert Wells.
A Note to Aspiring Writers
I feel absolutely unqualified to tell anyone how to write, as good writing is a deeply personal thing. But several of you have sent in messages and emails asking about writing, so here we are. While my standard pitch will always be “Pick up a pen and put words on paper… work through it” (just as “Pick up a camera and go” is my advice for photographers), here are three things I always try to keep in mind when writing:
Write like you talk. Stop worrying the words on the page. If you’re looking through the Thesaurus for a fancy-sounding word to dress up your writing, stop. If you wouldn’t use it in spoken English, don’t write it. Think about the cadence of the spoken word. How do you form your sentences? See if you can capture that tempo on the page.
Be honest. Writing—good writing—isn’t for the faint-hearted. You’re putting a private part of yourself out there into the world. It encourages you to do things worth writing about… to get out into the world, meet people, get a little banged up, and tell a story in the process.
Embrace the chaos. Don’t wait for a quiet coffeehouse playing the right kind of music, or for the morning sun to hit your breakfast table just right. Don’t be fussy with your location. Carry a notebook and pen wherever you go, and just pick up the pen. Open the notebook. Poke at the paper a bit. Write. Write a grocery list. Something. Just put stripes of ink on paper. Words will come, and those word will become paragraphs.