December 07, 2005

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Palo Alto Online

Capturing the beauty in the beast

by Saqib Rahim

Michael Kern's South Palo Alto home is filled to maximum capacity.

Not with children, though he has two. Not with lights, props, or gadgets, though he is an amateur photographer.

It's filled with reptiles: lizards, snakes, and turtles. Kern keeps more than 40 pets -- mostly reptiles, but including the occasional dog or amphibian -- in a house that has vivariums and cages at every turn. That means he and his family have a lot more pet maintenance than most, Kern admits, but he doesn't think much of it.

"Like any hobby, it's a passion -- it's not really work," he said.

But this weekend warrior, who often photographs his animals on a table in the garage, is about to meet a whole new world of fauna. Earlier this year, Kern won a herpetological -- that is, reptile- and amphibian-related -- photography contest. The grand prize? Joining a 16-day research expedition to Uganda as the group's official cameraman.

Kern embarked on the trip Monday.

The East African nation is known for its tremendous diversity of wildlife, considered one of the most varied in the world. The expedition will traverse Uganda's forests, mountains and rivers in search of new species.

"Uganda's the apex -- as good as it gets," Kern said.

The opportunity is a surprising development for a man who grew up with photography but hadn't found a passion for it. As a young boy in New Orleans, Kern said, he received many a lesson from his father, who was a photographer. But the younger Kern wasn't very excited by the highly technical, pedantic approach. He was interested in something else entirely: animals.

When he was about 10, he met a kid who had snakes of his own -- and even little alligators, he said. In one classic photo from those days, his father shot him with a snake cradled around his neck.

But with adolescence, came the distractions of girls and growing up, Kern said. He forgot about animals for a while, taking up other hobbies such as music. In adulthood, he spent some years working in Japan, Southeast Asia, and South America, eventually settling down in the Bay Area with a family and a steady consulting job.

Things changed when Kern and his family visited his father in New Orleans three years ago. Josh, Kern's elder son, was about 10 at the time, and when he saw the photo of his young dad entangled with a snake, he demanded to know when he would be allowed to do the same.

For Kern, who had been looking for a fun family activity, snakes made sense. "I wanted to have something that the family could do together," he said.

So when Josh's next birthday came, he got his wish: an albino corn snake. Then little brother Alex got a variable king snake. Several months later, Kern joined the fun, buying a boa. The interest snowballed as the family brought more and more creatures to their two-story home, and they nicknamed their home "The Kern Family Zoo."

Soon, Kern found himself casually photographing his home's various residents with a point-and-shoot Olympus camera. Gradually, he said, he became interested in capturing them more vividly, and his father's old training came back. From there, Kern's affair with photography has only intensified.

"When I get into something, I take it to the max," he said. "I take my photography seriously now."

Sometimes that means sitting in the garage for an hour and shooting as many as 200 photos of his reptilian subject. Typically, he will set up the animal in his garage "studio" and patiently wait for something to happen, only occasionally offering some food or other stimulus.

"You can't just step in and pose these animals," he said.

The ultimate goal, he said, is "bringing out the beauty in the beast": showing that these animals -- including snakes, which terrify many people -- have another face that is neither slimy nor hostile.

Reptile enthusiasts seemed to appreciate that quality in Kern's contest-winning rainbow-boa photo, which catches the snake easing over a chunk of gnarled wood, its curves glowing blue-green.

"It shows the essence of that snake," he said of his photo, which was voted first place by a five-judge panel and an Internet poll.

Kern concedes the expedition will be far from a milk run. He will be camping out on truly wild terrain, and he'll be keeping company with hardened professionals.

Nevertheless, for a man who confesses that he enjoys cleaning out cages on Saturdays, enthusiasm might be enough. Asked to explain how a chameleon works, he pauses then motions that he's going to fetch a photo.

"A picture's worth a thousand words," he said.

Editorial Intern Saqib Rahim can be reached at srahim@paweekly.com.

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