I photographed this juvenile alligator covered in aquatic vegetation in 1984 on Lake Charles, Louisiana. My brother, Joel, and I met a couple of young guys who wanted to show us what a swamp looks like at night. It was eerie, primeval, unnerving, and I definitely knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore! We had a powerful flashlight, and it became immediately apparent our flat bottom boat was surrounded by gators because dozens of eyes glowed in the dark from the light. We pulled our boat close to this one and I used a large flash (Metz 60 CT-4) along with a Mamiya RZ 67 medium format film camera. After I took this shot, one of my new friends reached down and grabbed the alligator by the neck and brought it into the boat so I could get a closeup of it's face. It was only about 5 feet long so it was still manageable. He then threw the reptile back into the water, and Joel, with his quick wit and sense of humor, said, "See you later, alligator." You have to appreciate that in the pitch darkness, the humidity, and the primeval environment, that was pretty funny. My settings were unrecorded, but they were probably 1/250, f/11, 64 ISO, and I used a 250mm telephoto equivalent to a 135mm lens in the full frame digital format. I was using Kodak Ektachrome 64 (slide film) at the time.
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