Ralph Arwood's Image

Ralph works as a volunteer photographer in the huge Big Cypress National Preserve, part of Florida’s Western Everglades.

Bald-cypress is a typical tree of this vast wetland, often growing within the swamp areas, draped in moss, and providing food, nesting places and shelter for many of the animals found here. Twice a year, Ralph joins biologists as they fly transects over the cypress swamp to monitor the numbers of white-tailed deer. The deer feed in the open prairies in early morning, and so the flights begin at sunrise. ‘As so often on an early morning flight, the ground fog rising from the water crystallised the light,’ he says. ‘A huge, glistening spider’s web hanging from one of the bald-cypress trees added the perfect accent to a mystical view of the swamp.’