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Photos by Gerry Lemmo |
| This father fox and two kits were living
in a barn in Chilson, west of Ticonderoga. Gerry photographed
them in spring when the kits were about 8 weeks old. |
The wild life of Gerry Lemmo
By Diane Sirois
Gerry Lemmo will be happy to talk about what
it’s like to work as a wildlife photographer in the Adirondacks.
But the ants come first.
There’s a small column of them marching up a wood-paneled
wall of a sunny room in the home south of Lake George that Gerry
shares with his wife and partner in photography, Lynne, and he is
concerned. Concerned that we might trample them if they wander onto
the floor. So he carefully removes them from the wall and just as
carefully relocates them outside.
“Come on. Leave the bugs alone,” Lynne sighs, smiling.
She’s seen this before. She shares a recent note that Gerry
left saying he thought termites had moved in. The note suggests
that the termites should be studied rather than exterminated.
Talk about all creatures great and small: Gerry Lemmo observes and
respects them all. He has worked as a wildlife photographer for
over 20 years. He has been surrounded by bison in the snows of Yellowstone,
sniffed for 20 very long seconds by a large black bear outside an
Indian Lake landfill, and confronted by a cow elk in British Columbia’s
Yoho National Park. (“I was a greenhorn—this was back
in ’79—and I got too close to her,” recalls Gerry,
who is now 48. “She charged me, so I charged her back. She
dropped back fast, but, well, I don’t recommend doing what
I did.”) He has logged at least 125,000 miles in pursuit of
birds, reptiles, mammals and insects in East Africa, Alaska, the
Amazon, the Galapagos Islands and Antarctica. But it’s here
in the Adirondacks, the mountains that double as his big back yard,
that he does most of his wildlife work.
When Gerry and Lynne aren’t aiming lenses at wildlife, they
run a wedding photography business. “Before I met Gerry,
all I knew was squirrels and blue jays,” Lynne says. That
has changed. They married in 1993 and renewed their vows in 1998
aboard a ship chugging toward Antarctica (the Russian captain officiated).
Their wedding work shares space in the basement with Gerry’s
slides, a meticulously organized 60,000-piece collection that occupies
a small herd of file cabinets.
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| Gerry photographed this black bear as
it emerged from the woods on a summer afternoon. He waited two
hours after setting up his blind near a wildlife trail outside
the village of Indian Lake. |
Bohemian waxwing? He’s got it. Hadada
ibis? Check. Grizzly bear? Please be more specific: Do you want
a shot of an adult with cubs, or cubs alone? Spring peeper? Would
that be single or mating?
Also downstairs are stacks of glass-front cases that hold mounted
displays of the insects Gerry hunted as a child in Queens. As a
kid, he’d wander away from his elementary-school classmates
during recess, and his panicked teachers would eventually find him
under bushes, “looking for things.” As a teen, he stopped
sticking pins in his subjects and started photographing them. He
never studied photography formally, but he did a two-year stint
as a news photographer at the Glens Falls Post Star. Later, he took
up wildlife photography in earnest, spending many long hours in
the field to hone his skills.
Gerry’s camera equipment is relatively scant for the variety
of shots he seeks. Two 20-year-old Canon cameras equipped with manual-focus
telephoto lenses suffice for most wildlife outings; a 100mm macro
setup handles close-up shots of insects. (With its two extended
arms bearing antennalike flash units, it looks like a big bug observing
little ones.) There’s no darkroom in the Lemmo home; Gerry
sends his work out for development. “I’ve never liked
chemicals,” he explains. “Besides, it would take away
from my time in the field.”
Nor is there any computer-aided digital tinkering. Gerry refuses
to resort to what he calls “gimmicks” and “doctoring”
to alter images of wildlife. He might use a flash for extra
lighting, but that’s about the extent of his special effects.
His most important piece of gear is “probably my ears. So
I can tell what’s approaching. And my patience.”
He thinks nothing of spending 12 hours in a blind in search of the
perfect shot, often arriving before dawn to take advantage of the
early-morning light. He’s waited out his subjects in temperatures
ranging from below zero to nearly 90 degrees. Since standing up
in the blind might blow his cover, Gerry tries to stretch out along
the ground when his muscles start to cramp. As for passing the time,
he admits bringing comic books on one shoot, but he insists he never
opened them. He just stays alert for the approach of wildlife. “I’m
excited knowing that, in the proper spot and in time, things will
appear,” he says.
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| Gerry Lemmo is ready for
action. |
Gerry hesitates to share details about where
he photographs what in the Park, and with good reason: He’s
worked hard to find regular spots to see deer, bear and owls, and
the camera-toting competition would be more than happy to move right
in. But there are many reasons he relishes shooting in the Adirondacks.
For one, there’s a diversity of habitats, including marshes,
wetlands, hardwood forests and meadows, making for a fantastic profusion
of subjects.
One of the Lemmos’ fondest Adirondack memories was a journey
last year to the Cedar River Flow in the Moose River Plains. Gerry
recalls feeling “a real rush” as wave after wave of
warblers passed overhead while he hurried to assemble his gear.
Lynne’s favorite may have been a wilderness camping trip to
Big Otter Lake in the western Adirondacks. After being deposited
by seaplane, she and Gerry were kept awake well into the night by
a chorus of owls and coyotes.
Then there was the trip to Tahawus, south of the High Peaks, in
search of the elusive pine marten. As Gerry set up his long lenses,
expecting a distance shoot, one of the sleek little mammals stuck
its head right into the blind, catching Gerry unprepared for a close-up.
And as close-ups go, it might not be possible to top the time that
a Canadian hawk owl alighted on Gerry’s lens in the middle
of a shoot.
Gerry knows that when most people think of wildlife photography,
they conjure up images of mega-fauna such as bear, deer and moose.
He wishes they would lower their sights a little to see the fascinating
world under their noses. “They miss out on so many other things
that are so much easier to see,” he says.
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Gerry hid behind his car
to photograph this fawn along
a back road in the Old Forge region. |
Maybe the best way to grasp his it’s-right-here-in-front-of-you
approach is to watch it in action. So he loads 40 pounds of gear into
a weathered silver Isuzu Trooper, and he and Lynne lead a mini-expedition
to a spot on the Hudson River not far from their home. Gerry wants
to see if the fairy shrimp—tiny freshwater crustaceans—he
noticed in muddy roadside pools a few weeks ago are still there.
The day is clear, bright and magnificent, and there is plenty to
see and hear in the woods that line the water. As we round a bend,
two brown-headed cowbirds engage in an aerial battle above a cleared
field; Gerry points a camouflage-covered lens out of the driver’s-side
window to capture this territorial spat on film, but he hasn’t
set up properly for “drive-by shooting” today, so he
takes a pass on the pair.
A brief walk in the marshy woods is slow going for Gerry, and not
just because he’s hauling all that gear, along with a sizable
tripod: He’s listening for wildlife signals. Chickadees and
crows announce themselves, and Gerry returns their calls. He thinks
we would be likely to encounter turkey vultures or beavers here,
given time and patience.
Today, even the fairy shrimp are nowhere to be found, although Gerry
dons rubber boots and spends a good half-hour skimming pools in
search of them. But an old log yields a tiny treasure. “The
more rotten, the better,” he says, turning it over. A coppery
glint catches his eye. It’s a flatheaded borer beetle, and
it’s not much larger than a grain of rice. “Wow! I don’t
think I have one of these,” Gerry exclaims, carefully removing
the creature from the log and placing it in an empty film canister
so that he can bring it home to photograph and study. The trip is
a success after all.
Later, Gerry shot a roll and a half of borer photos before returning
the beetle the next day to the very same spot on the very same log.
Round-trip distance: 40 miles. He also had supplied his overnight
guest with watered-down maple syrup, just in case his interference
caused any missed meals. All creatures great and small: Gerry Lemmo
loves and photographs them all. |
