Feathered Photography

As a teenager, Mathew Tekulsky went on a cross-country tour in a converted cattle train as part of a summer camp excursion. The train meandered through Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and back to New York, where Tekulsky was from. Months before his trip, on his 15th birthday, Tekulsky had received a camera from his grandfather, an avid photographer who developed his own photographs in a darkroom in his basement. The Nikkorex Zoom 35 camera would document Tekulsky’s trip, mostly American scenery, like Mount Rainier and Mount Rushmore. As much as he enjoyed his brief stint as a photographer, other fields soon captured his interests and photography fell by the wayside. Years later, however, while in his 40s, his interest in photography was reignited and Tekulsky dedicated himself full-time to taking pictures, particularly of birds. Beginning February 9 and remaining until March 9, an exhibit of 50 of Tekulsky’s greatest bird photographs will be on display in the James Gray Gallery at the Bergamot Station Art Center in Santa Monica. The exhibit will feature photos of hummingbirds, jays, pelicans, swallows, sylphs, parakeets and more, shot in Hawaii, the Galapagos, Yosemite, Vermont and British Columbia, as well as local spots like the Malibu Lagoon, Lake Balboa, the Sepulveda Basin Wildlife Reserve and his own backyard in Mandeville Canyon. ‘Part of the aspect of bird photography is that it’s like a hunt to get that image,’ Tekulsky says. ‘At that moment, it’s sort of like climbing a mountain. You’re in the moment, just you and the subject. ‘Just the enjoyment of the chase and then achieving that Zen moment itself, was a wonderful way to spend a part of a day, or a full day, and I kept doing it day after day.’ Tekulsky’s days capturing the perfect image are often long and arduous. When shooting on location, he generally spends several hours in the morning taking shots, breaks for lunch and then back at it for another couple hours. ‘I think of it a lot like a sporting event. It’s very physical. You have to bring all your equipment with you, and food and water,’ he says. ‘You have to crouch and get up and down carrying things. Cameras around your neck start to get pretty heavy after awhile, and in the summer, you’re just dripping wet.’ Still, the physical aspect of long photo shoots is only half the battle. Initially, Tekulsky must find where his subjects will be and when. A self-proclaimed birdman, who even wrote a column for ‘National Geographic’ called ‘The Birdman of Bel-Air,’ Tekulsky possesses a wealth of knowledge on the subject of fowl. He studies migration patterns and old trail guides in order to figure out when and where his feathered subjects might appear. However, birds are excitable by nature, and if startled will quickly fly away, ruining any chance of Tekulsky capturing their image. ‘You have to have patience and try to communicate [with birds],’ he says. ‘You start off 15 to 20 feet away, then work your way closer and closer as they become more and more used to you. After you’ve been with a bird a long enough time that you don’t threaten them, they start to trust you. You can feel it.’ The trust between human being and bird is a feeling Tekulsky is quite familiar with, although with some species it takes longer than with others. When he traveled to the Galapagos Islands, he came across the Galapagos Hawk, a large predatory bird, with no natural enemies. ‘The [Galapagos] hawk is at the top of the foodchain. He had no fear of me,’ Tekulsky said. ‘He sat on that perch for about 15 minutes and I shot so many pictures while he was not moving that I actually started getting bored, but just before he flew off, he started testing his wings and as soon as the wings went up, I took two shots.’ (One of the Galapagos Hawk shots appears in the exhibit.) Other birds, in less exotic places, were a bit more timid. By virtue of having his lab literally in his backyard which is filled with luscious landscaping and birdfeeders, Tekulsky is able to develop a relationship with the types of birds that are difficult to photograph. Two such birds are the black tail hummingbird and the hooded oriole, both of which migrate through during the spring and summer months. He knew the black tail hummingbirds would be coming through his yard. So last May he decided that he was going photograph them. He hung his feeder, filled it with sugar water and waited. After catching a first glimpse of the birds he set up his camera facing the feeder. ‘The first day, if I walked near the feeder, he would fly away, Tekulsky said. ‘He would not get within 20 feet of me. He would come closer after a week or two, but then he got to trust me so much that if I was just six feet away from the feeder he would fly in and perch.’ (This photograph also appears in the exhibit, among several others of his backyard hummingbirds.) The hooded oriole arrives in Tekulsky’s backyard every March and remains until August. ‘One day you’ll see a little yellow patch and think, ‘It can’t be, he’s back’ and he just sits there,’ Tekulsky said. ‘I put the sugar water in the feeder and for the next six months I am a slave to this oriole and his family.’ However, orioles are even less fond of humans than are hummingbirds. Even the movement of a finger, or the click of a camera is enough to scare them away. To combat this Tekulsky exercised patience, sometimes shooting the bird through his window. Eventually, as with most birds, the oriole soon became accustomed to his presence and he was able to obtain some wonderful shots. ‘Trying to produce a great picture with a wild animal, you have to get them to trust you,’ Tekusky says. ‘I feel like it’s a victory when I can get close to a species that is skittish.’ Other birds featured in the James Gray Gallery exhibit include the American White Pelican, dusky-headed parakeets, violet-tailed sylph, swallow tailed gulls, blue-footed booby, magnificent frigatebird and many more. ‘If you watch birds long enough, you can anticipate their movements. They’re always moving their heads, but there is a time when they lift their head up and stop for a brief instant,’ Tekulsky says. ‘I can usually sense when that’s going to happen. I’m almost clicking before he gets there.’ Tekulsky’s love and knowledge of birds began with his love of nature. After graduating from the University of Rochester with a degree in history, he wanted to become an environmentalist and ‘save the environment.’ Believing that journalism would be a great way of accomplishing environmental achievements, he delved into writing. He even wrote several books, including ‘The Butterfly Garden’ and ‘The Hummingbird Garden,’ which explained, as the subtitles read, ‘Turning your garden, window box, or backyard into a beautiful home for butterflies/hummingbirds.’ Now, and for the immediate future, though, his primary focus is photography. Tekulsky plans to spend more time traveling around the country, perhaps changing up his subjects from birds to landscape and Americana. ‘Once I hooked onto photography it always kept me going. I haven’t made money doing it, but it has been a labor of love,’ Tekulsky says. ‘I have a theory for myself: If it starts to feel like work, stop. Because it’s not going to be good if your force it.’