For Scott E. Martin, heading into the Everglades is part escape, part work and part therapy.
When Martin climbs into his airboat with his camera bag and his dog Spike, he drives away from the ramp at the end of Lox Road into Water Conservation Area 2A feeling as if he is leaving civilization far behind. That's even though he can still see it as he looks east from his perch above the vast sawgrass marsh.
As he heads to his Four Moons camp, he'll occasionally hear or see the airboat of a fellow camp owner, but that's it as far as human contact.
For Martin, of Deerfield Beach, Fla., it's a refreshing change from his work overseeing remodeling projects. And there's nothing the former hunter and fisherman loves to do more than take photos of Everglades wildlife.
"I'm a photographer," said Martin, whose photos can be seen at scottemartinphoto.com and on Facebook at Scott E. Martin Photography. "I was a contractor forever. I gave up hunting, I gave up fishing. I love nature.
"I've been trying to take pictures of the outdoors that people don't see. People that are stuck at a desk have no clue."
Martin is a different type of plume hunter from those who shot wading birds in the Everglades so their feathers could adorn women's hats, which was the fashion in the early 1900s.
His Everglades camp, which is built on stilts, features many poster-sized photos of blue herons, limpkins, egrets and roseate spoonbills, as well as owls, hawks, alligators and panoramic shots of the River of Grass.
He doesn't enhance his photos on the computer, preferring to wait for the lighting to get just right before taking the shot.
One of Martin's favorite days was when he shot a gorgeous sunrise looking east from the beach in Deerfield and then captured an even prettier sunset later that day looking west in the Everglades.
Martin smiles when he talks about all the miles he's driven in his airboat in search of special photographs, only to find some of his best shots in his watery backyard.
"I went all over everyplace trying to chase spoonbills," Martin said of the shy, pink wading birds. "Well, you don't sneak up on them with an airboat. I come up the south trail right here, and there were about 20 outside my front door."
The walkway around the building where overnight guests stay, which has a federally approved environmentally friendly toilet and shower with hot water, is home to nesting owls. Hawks have a nest in one of the trees behind his camp.
The walls of the main building of his camp, where Martin and Spike sleep and which has a kitchen with a solar-powered coffee maker and radio, a propane stove and an air conditioner and refrigerator powered by a gas generator, have photos of the birds of prey feeding their young.
Martin, who grew up in Bloomington, Ind., was more interested in ducks when he moved to South Florida in 1971. He bought his first airboat in 1975 so he could hunt waterfowl in the Everglades.
"I loved to duck hunt, so I'd go west and I'd hunt and hunt and hunt," Martin said. "I was a contractor so I'd work during the day and knock off early in the afternoon and go hunting or I'd go shooting in the morning and come back to work at 9 o'clock."
He always had an interest in photography and eventually traded in his shotguns for better cameras and lenses.
Martin bought his camp five years ago, but shortly after that he suffered a stroke while working on a 6,000-square-foot home on the Intracoastal Waterway.
Coming out to Four Moons not only helped him recover physically and mentally, it also led him to focus on taking photos.
"I'm a tenacious old fella who never gives up," Martin said. "My whole thing is to get people who don't get a chance to see the Everglades to see it through my photography."
