The Reel Life: A Stunning Collection of Our Video Captures

Not all pollution begins hundreds of miles away. Sometimes it begins with an aluminum can thrown beside a shoreline, a plastic bottle left beneath a bridge, fishing line abandoned near the mangroves, or garbage dropped beside a road where rain can eventually carry it into a storm drain, canal, river, bay, or ocean. It begins when careless people treat wild places as though someone else will always clean up after them. This garbage can carry it into mangroves, across shallow flats, through Florida Bay, around the Keys, and out toward the reef. Plastic can break into smaller and smaller pieces. Fishing line can entangle birds, turtles, fish, and marine mammals. Cans, bottles, foam, discarded nets, and other debris can turn beautiful places into dumping grounds.

    It is easy to look at a problem this large and believe one person cannot make a difference, but I believe responsibility begins with what is directly in front of us. One of the things I do—and will continue to do—is pick up the garbage I find along Florida’s shorelines, islands, mangroves, roadsides, and waterways. I may not be able to clean the entire planet by myself, but I can leave every place I visit cleaner than it was when I arrived. Every bottle, fishing line and aluminum can we remove matters!

    I decided to get a little creative with my garbage. I have been keeping the aluminum cans I collect from these places. I am saving them, melting down the aluminum, and transforming that litter into a permanent part of my photography. Some of my prints I create will include an actual banded piece made from the melted aluminum cans I have personally removed from Florida’s shorelines and waterways.

The reclaimed aluminum will be incorporated into the finished print.

    By melting down the cans and incorporating that aluminum into the actual artwork, I am turning pollution into art and giving something discarded a new purpose. What was once trash lying beside a shoreline, trapped in a mangrove, or waiting to be carried away by the tide will become a permanent part of an image celebrating the place from which it was removed.

    Every aluminum band will represent litter that is no longer lying in the environment. Each banded print will carry physical evidence of restoration. I want your eyes to find the band of reclaimed aluminum, and remind you that the beauty shown in the photograph is fragile—and that protecting it requires more than admiring it. I want the aluminum to stay on your mind as a symbol and a reminder. Maybe it will inspire you to bend down and pick up trash in the future.

    That one small action may not feel like much, but imagine what could happen if every person on this planet picked up just one piece of trash every day. Billions of pieces of litter could be removed from our roads, parks, rivers, shorelines, beaches, and oceans. One person cannot clean the entire planet alone. But if each of us took responsibility for one piece at a time, every day, together we could make an enormous difference. We could drastically reduce—and perhaps one day eliminate—the litter covering so many of our coastlines and wild places. That is what I want the aluminum band to represent.  

    Because loving Florida—and loving this planet—requires more than admiring its beauty. It requires action, responsibility, and a willingness to care for these places even when nobody else is watching.

That is why protecting the Keys cannot begin and end at the shoreline of the Keys.

We cannot celebrate turquoise water, healthy flats, thriving mangroves, abundant fish, and living coral without also caring about what happens in the Everglades, Florida Bay, Lake Okeechobee, and the watersheds farther north.

    We cannot claim to love these places while leaving our garbage behind. The Everglades, Florida Bay, the Florida Keys, and the reef system are connected. Understand, that conservation is not only something done by scientists, governments, or large organizations. It can begin with one person bending down to pick up one piece of garbage. Small actions matter when enough people are willing to take them.

I want to show the beauty that remains before people forget what it once looked like, and also the damage before people begin to accept it as normal.

And I want to show the signs of hope before people decide it is too late.

    My work is centered on the Florida Keys because this is the place that has my heart and soul. This is where I find adventure, peace, inspiration, and purpose. This is where Salty Bushwhacker became more than a name. It became A Way of Livin’.

    Loving and enjoying the Keys means caring about more than the islands themselves.

It means caring about all the water that flows from Central Florida, through the Kissimmee River and Lake Okeechobee, across the Everglades, into Florida Bay, through the Keys, and eventually toward the reef.

    Florida has been pushed against the current for a long time. Its waters have been redirected, wetlands have been drained, coastlines have been crowded, wild spaces have been divided into smaller and smaller pieces, shorelines and waterways have been treated carelessly, and Florida is BROKEN! But broken does not mean finished.

    If we restore a more natural flow of clean freshwater, reduce pollution, improve wastewater and stormwater systems, protect remaining wetlands, limit destructive development, preserve wildlife habitat, clean our shorelines, and remember that every part of the system is connected, we can still move the current in the right direction.

What do I want my photography and videos to accomplish? I want them to help people fall in love with the Florida Keys the way I have. I want people to see why this place is paradise—and why paradise is worth protecting. I want them to understand that the beauty of the Keys does not begin at the first bridge and does not end at the reef. It begins with rain falling far to the north and continues through an incredible living system that connects freshwater to saltwater, marshes to mangroves, Florida Bay to the islands, and the islands to the sea.

    Through my lens, I want people to see the tropical beauty that remains, the damage that has already been done, and the hope that still exists.

Most of all, I want as many people as possible to understand that the Florida Keys, Florida Bay, the Everglades, the reef, and the waters connecting them are still worth fighting for……