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Event Captures Images Of A Vanishing Florida

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By GEORGE WILKENS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 14, 2007

NEW TAMPA - Like so many Floridians, Boston-born John Moran is a transplant.

In 2003, the 52-year-old quit his full-time newspaper job and began traveling his adopted state in an effort to photograph how it must have looked when explorers first reached the peninsula five centuries ago.

The former Gainesville Sun photographer, writer and editor will share his thoughts and images during a free program 7 p.m. Thursday at the New Tampa Regional Library.

Moran's critically acclaimed images of vanishing Florida have appeared in numerous books and magazines, including National Geographic, Life, Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Smithsonian, The New York Times Magazine and on the cover of the 'National Audubon Society Field Guide to Florida.'

'We're by and large such a transplant state, I think it's a real struggle for a lot people to really connect with the real Florida experience,' Moran said in a recent telephone interview from his rural home five miles east of Gainesville.

'As the state has gotten more and more populated, there are more distractions in our culture that seem to be pulling people away from a meaningful connection with the environment.'

Many of Moran's photographs target beaches, lakes, rivers and springs.

'I think water is the unifying theme of the body of my work,' said Moran, who often travels by kayak or canoe to explore Florida's waterways, home to many of the state's birds, mammals and reptiles.

'It's a very highly selective view of the best of what's left of real Florida,' Moran said of his striking nature photos. 'It's still out there for people who choose to seek and go find.'

Often, as Moran pursues photographic prey, he finds he is the only person on a river or in a state park. That suits him.

'I love to live where I live in north Florida, where it's not quite as crowded' as other areas of this state of 18 million.

'Florida is still a state ... rich in the abundant gifts of nature. I think a lot of people struggle to really connect with the real Florida experience,' said Moran, whose family migrated from Massachusetts to Fort Myers when he was 2.

Asked about his favorite Florida spot, Moran cites two: Juniper Creek in the Ocala National Forest and Ichetucknee Springs in north-central Florida.

'I'm just a guy out there with an eye and a heart trying to make a real connection with Florida, and then to share that with a wider audience,' he said.

Reporter George Wilkens can be reached at (813) 865-4847 or gwilkens@tampatrib.com.

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