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Take a photo safari

No passport is required. A Lutz gallery focuses on wildlife. What's the first stop? The Galapagos Islands.

By ELIZABETH MILLER
Published December 11, 2005

LUTZ - Stuart Marcus has a goal. Though he has been all over the world photographing wildlife - from leopards in Africa to tropical penguins in the Galapagos Islands - he's set on seeing a wolf in Denali National Park, Alaska.

The wolf pack that resides in Denali is a small one, said Marcus, 54, and he has yet to set his eyes on one of them.

"My son was there on a camping trip and he saw one," Marcus said with good-natured jealousy. "A friend of the family was there for a four-hour tour, the shortest tour you can take, and she saw not one but two!"

When Marcus does get to see his wolf, he'd love to get it in print. A firefighter turned wildlife photographer from Lutz, Marcus has recently taken his passion for travel and photography to the public with the opening of the Wildlife Gallery.

The gallery, a small studio on Flagship Drive in Lutz, features Marcus' wildlife work and that of other artists.

"This has been my most popular selling picture since 9/11," he said, pointing to a close-up of a bald eagle, which he captured on Independence Day 1997 in Sitka, Alaska.

Growing up, Marcus was the son of a mechanic for a major airline, which allowed his family to travel often. Marcus loved seeing new places.

A once-aspiring photographer, he gave it up to be a firefighter for Tampa. But after 18 years, a back injury forced Marcus into an early retirement.

While still with the fire department, he had started his own company, Sonic Connections International, designing audio and cable wiring for theaters and other businesses. That became his full-time job after his back surgery.

Travel often lured Marcus off the beaten track.

"I was a terrible tourist," he said with a laugh. "I'd always be the last one back to the bus."

He started forgoing the traditional tours and instead hired local guides and naturalists, soaking up information on the animals and their environments. Marcus has been known to wait from dawn until well after dark, several days at a time, to catch animals being themselves. He tells of returning to camp in the African Serengeti long after the generators had been shut off.

His eyes light up and he's like a kid in a toy store talking about the Galapagos penguin or the mating dance of the blue-footed booby.

"I'm not looking for that great shot," Marcus said. "I do it for a different purpose. I want to show the behavior of the animal in its natural environment."

He has passed up some of those great shots.

"We were watching killer whales off the coast of Seward, Alaska," he said. "There was so much wondrous activity going on, I felt like I was missing the event. I had to put the camera down to take it all in."

Alaska is one of Marcus' favorites. He has volunteered for four years for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. His pictures of the resident grizzly bears of Pack Creek are used for an identification program to track and study them.

Grizzly bears have crossed his path, and a moose once charged him and his family to protect its calf.

"That was the most scared I've ever been," Marcus said. That incident surpassed the young cheetah in his jeep in Africa who swiped at Marcus' head while he posed for a picture with it.

A photographer friend persuaded Marcus to turn professional after seeing his vacation photos.

At Marcus' first show five years ago on Davis Islands, he sold 34 prints. His first show at his new gallery will highlight the animals from his April trip to the Galapagos.

The gallery will also feature the work of photographer Sherrie St. James, whose work has been on display at the Florida Aquarium; Mark Lowell, a Temple Terrace police officer and underwater photographer; Jeff McCartney, a nature photographer; and Scott Hanson, a sculptor from Hawaii.

The opening of the gallery marks a turning point in Marcus' personal life.

Marcus is about to become a grandfather. That means he has to stay at his businesses because his daughter-in-law, who normally runs the office, will be on maternity leave.

The gallery will serve as his creative outlet, he said. But he won't be grounded so easily. He still wants to see that wolf, and so many other animals and places.

"I still want to dive the Barrier Reef again. I still want to go to Tasmania and the Amazonian rain forest," Marcus said. "There's still so much of this world I want to see and explore."

[Last modified December 10, 2005, 10:13:05]