Steven Scott Grogin describes his mornings in Michigan as a ritual. He wakes up at 6am on the dot to get ready for a hike. His favourite lake, once a quarry pit, is a 30-minute walk away, so he tends to arrive by around 7am. \u201cIt\u2019s serene and private, and I feel very peaceful there,\u201d Grogin says. \u201cThe terrain changes from flat areas to very hilly sections, and there is a lot of biodiversity.\u201d<\/p>\n
As he circled the lake\u2019s perimeter, he saw this American bullfrog in the water. \u201cIt was the largest one I\u2019ve ever seen, around six to eight inches long and very hefty,\u201d he says. \u201cBullfrogs are predators, but they\u2019re also very skittish, so getting close is difficult.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grogin hoped the animal might naturally drift closer to the shore. Once it did, he set to work. \u201cI got as low as I\u00a0could in the mud and moved carefully, making sure I didn\u2019t startle it,\u201d he says. \u201cHolding the phone steady at the surface, I slightly dipped the lens below the waterline to get this shot. It took patience, balance and a lot of problem-solving.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grogin stayed into the late afternoon before returning home to make subtle edits. \u201cI like to preserve as much real texture and clarity as\u00a0possible,\u201d he says. \u201cTo\u00a0me, it\u2019s like taking a rough copy of something and chipping away at it to reveal its inner beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n
He hopes his picture will recreate the same sense of immersion for viewers, \u201cas if they\u2019re floating in the water, too, face to face with a world they would usually only look down at from above. The bullfrog is only a small creature, but from this perspective, it feels powerful, surreal and mythical.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steven Scott Grogin describes his mornings in Michigan as a ritual. He wakes up at 6am on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":["post-856187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}