Field Work
Thirty-one plates from the upper Texas coast and the Hill Country, made between June and September 2026: bottomland hardwood at Brazos Bend, prairie and pond at John Paul Landing, the Barker reach west of Houston, the beach at San Luis Pass, and Colorado Bend State Park. Every animal here is wild, unbaited and uncalled, photographed from public trails and roads.
- Plates
- 315 sections
- Sites
- 7state and county parks, prairie and beach
- Identified
- 15every animal, to species
- Made
- Jun to Sep9 June 2026 to 10 September 2026
- Composites
- Noneplate 22 is an in-camera high-res capture
On files and prints. Everything on this page is a web export. Full-resolution files are available for licensing, and prints of any plate can be enquired about on the prints page, or just get in touch.
Wildlife
Species and behaviour from public trails on the upper coast and in the Hill Country. Every animal here is identified to species.
In Sequence
Behaviour told across frames: a strike inside one second, a nighthawk leaving its roost four minutes later, a vulture landing in nineteen frames. Open a plate to step through it.
Close Work
Invertebrates at working distance, mostly with the long zoom rather than a macro lens. Four species from three sites.
Last Light
The half-hour either side of sunset, which on this coast is when most of the work happens.
Note
Parks and People
Frames about the place rather than the wildlife in it: the kind of picture a magazine needs constantly and gets offered rarely.
Field practice
Handheld throughout. No blind, no bait, no calls, no drone, no nest work. Nothing here is a captive, game-farm or rehabilitated animal, and nothing is dead or mounted.
Every plate is a single exposure with one stated exception: plate 22 is an in-camera Handheld High Res Shot, a pixel-shift capture of one scene in one burst. Sequences are consecutive frames from one burst. Nothing is assembled from separate scenes, times or skies. Post-processing is limited to raw conversion, exposure, contrast, colour balance and cropping: nothing is added to a frame and nothing is removed from one.
Where a bird cannot be separated to species from the frame alone, the caption says so rather than picking the likelier of two.
Kit
- OM System OM-1
- Lumix G Vario 100–300 mm f/4–5.6 II
- M.Zuiko 12–40 mm f/2.8 PRO
- Leica DG Vario-Elmarit 12–60 mm f/2.8–4
Micro Four Thirds, 5184 × 3888 native. The 100–300 reaches 600 mm equivalent, which is what most of the wildlife plates were made at.
Coverage
Based in Houston and working Brazos Bend State Park, George Bush Park and Barker Reservoir, John Paul Landing Park, Lake Houston Wilderness Park and the Katy prairie on a regular rotation.
Also working Colorado Bend State Park in the Hill Country and the beach at San Luis Pass. Within a day’s drive: Jocelyn Nungaray and Brazoria NWRs, Galveston and the Bolivar Peninsula, and the Big Thicket. Available for assignment on the upper coast at short notice, including weekdays.
© Douglas Coffey / Space City FramesCredit line as it should appear in print
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Houston, Texas