Text and Photos by Jad Davenport - Special to Popular Photography Magazine September 2004

A gutsy pro and his DSLR take on sand, sea, sun, and whales.

It was an assignment that seemed to demand film. Northwest Dive News, a small monthly magazine based near Seattle, wanted me to join Terry Prichard, owner of Sea Kayak Adventures, as he led 14 paddlers on a week-long, 50-mile expedition down the wild western coast of Baja, Mexico. We would plow our 22-foot tandem kayaks through North Pacific swells, soaked by sea spray and thunderstorms. Our campsites, tucked in the lees of 40-foot dunes, would be sandblasted by offshore winds. With no towns along the way, the only supplies we would have - including electrical power - were those tucked into our dry bags.

The payoff was a rare glimpse at the longest mammal migration on the planet. Every February and March, more than 20,000 California gray whales arrive at this remote coast to mate and calve after a 12,000-mile round-trip journey from the icy waters of the Bering Sea.

If I had known then that National Geographic Adventure magazine would need a cover shot for their "25 Greatest Adventures" issue, I probably would have packed my Nikon F5 and F100 instead of my new Nikon D1x. After all, the film cameras were the safer bet; they had survived sandstorms in Egypt and cloud forests in Costa Rica. With a dozen AA batteries and 60 rolls of film, I could have a reliable power source and a nearly endless image canvas.

My decision to shoot digital, however, was a practical rather than a tactical one - I had sold both my film cameras to pay for the single digital SLR.

Having worked with other photographers, Prichard suggested I bungee a carry-on-sized Pelican case onto the middle deck of the kayak. If I paddled in the rear, I would have easy access to the camera when I needed it, rather that fumbling around with dry bags. The case would protect the camera from sand and water.

I packed my D1x, a 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 Nikkor lens for sweeping scenics and camp shots, an 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR Nikkor for wildlife and landscapes, and a spare battery. Two 1-gigabyte memory cards would store 120 TIFFs. Pinched by my recent D1x purchase, my budget precluded sensible accessories, such as more batteries, memory cards, and a digital wallet.

Less is…different

There was a certain freedom in a slimmed-down camera bag. It took me back to my days a broke, freelance war photographer when my rig consisted of a Nikon N8008, a 50mm lens, and 20 rolls of film rationed over a month. Once in El Salvador, I voiced my jealousy of another photographer's setup-two shiny Nikon F4s, and arsenal of lenses, and Ziplocs bulging with film. He looked at me and gave me the best photographic advice I've ever received: "It's not the gear that makes you good. It's the connection you have with the subject."

I discovered that magical connection early in the Baja kayak trip. As we fell into the rhythmic days of kayaking, I marveled at a primeval landscape that seemed more like Namibia's Skeleton Coast than Mexico's Baja. I popped off telephoto shots of paddlers silhouetted against range after range of burnt-orange dunes tumbling to the sea. Together with my kayak partner, I paddled ahead of the group to catch them gliding into a labyrinth of mangrove channels, past odoriferous heron rookeries.

I soon found that something all editors request, a new point of view, was inherent in sea kayaking. Low and quiet, the kayaks brought me into the wilderness and let me shoot from the water instead of land. Bracing my elbows on the Pelican case, I had a stable, almost water level platform from which to shoot shorebirds, fellow kayakers, and the spectacular wilderness around us.

Digital discipline

Apart from dealing with sand and spray, which the D1x handled just as well as the film bodies, there were other-more digital-issues to work around. As the days passed, I watched the battery indicators flicker and the memory cards fill. Instead of hindering me, though, these obstacles forced me to become more precise. Conserving power has its pluses. There are few things more distracting in close-quarters than the mosquito-like whine of an autofocus lens. Catching smiles and laughter around the campfire became easier when I switched to the silence of manual mode.

Another benefit of digital came into play as the bright light of midday burned into foggy evenings. With a press of a button, I could dial up my ISO and warm the white balance to better match changing light conditions. Before digital, I would have had to switch off rolls of film-a delicate task under the sandy, wet conditions.

Despite my limited storage, I still fired off a dozen frames of a coyote trotting along a dune. With the ability to instantly review them, I quickly discarded all but two. Stock-image possibilities decreased, but the overall quality of the images increased. I made every shot count.

Whales, however, continued to elude us early in the trip. We caught glimpses of silver plumes on the horizon, grays still on the move south, yet they were always just out of sight. It wasn't until the last day of the rip, when we hired local fishermen to take us farther out to sea in their dories, that we were able to see the once-endangered leviathans up close. Even after a week of shooting, I still had plenty of space and power to get lots of images.

Proof is on the cover

Several months after my feature ran in Northwest Dive News, I received a call from National Geographic Adventure. The magazine was doing a feature called "25 Trips of a Lifetime," and wanted to include the Sea Kayak Adventures trip. It was also looking for a cover shot.

The magazine wanted a slide of my image, but I explained that it was shot digitally. The photo editor was surprised, and cautious. "If we have to crop the image, I'm not sure we'll still have the 300-dpi resolution we need for the cover," she said.

A crop it turned out, was unnecessary. They ran an image of two kayakers against sunset dunes, and it became the magazine's first digital cover.

I asked the photo editor later if the fact that the image was digital played a role in her decision. "No!" she said. She was looking for a cover shot of an international destination that showed outdoor activity, something that was visually arresting. Whether I had recorded the image on a digital card or roll of chrome didn't matter to her. "What mattered," she said, echoing words I'd heard over a decade ago in the guerrilla-held highlands of El Salvador, "was that it was the right image."

Card tricks

Shooting TIFFs gave me just 60 shots per 1GB card. Next time, I'd shoot in JPEG Fine. That would give me 318 images per card. Still, with the equivalent of less than four rolls of film, I captured campsites, a coyote, encounters with gray whales, and portraits of my fellow paddlers.

Jad Davenport's photos appear regularly in Men's Journal, National Geographic Adventure, and other travel magazines. Based in Denver, the 37-year-old currently shoots exclusively in digital with a Nikon D1x and D100. His lenses (all Nikkor) include a 12-24mm f/4g, 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6D, and 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D VR.