Author: Matt

Often as wildlife photographers, we spend considerable time, effort, and money pursuing our passion.  We travel to National Parks and Wildlife Preserves believing that these are the only places we will find wildlife to photograph.  I have a trip to Yellowstone this fall that I’ve been planning for almost two years.  Sometimes though, you find wildlife opportunities in places you travel to for other reasons and where you would least expect.

Continue reading “Wildlife photography: Wildlife in the Big City”

Walking the trail this morning I thought to myself that this may be the first morning that I just don’t see anything really worth shooting.  It’s unusual to visit our local wildlife preserve and not see a variety of birds that change throughout the seasons.  Most everytime I go out I find something to shoot.  It’s been dry in West Texas for several months and the playa lake at the preserve is almost dry. This has a significant effect on both the amount and variety of birds that visit. I was almost completely around the trail and had only seen a few Redwing Blackbirds.

Continue reading “The Circle of Life”

Have you ever wanted to go somewhere on vacation and spend all day taking wildlife photographs but weren’t exactly into roughing it?  Maybe your spouse isn’t all that excited to spend the day watching you stare at a bird, waiting to take that perfect photo.  If that sounds familiar, do I have the trip for you.

Continue reading “Bosque Del Apache and T or C : Great wildlife, good food, hot springs and a spa”

We use this saying around my house anytime  someone doesn’t know how to work something. It has its origin in the movie Pretty Woman. In the scene at the opera, Julia Roberts doesn’t know how to use her opera glasses and famously says   ” Mine are broken”, only to have Richard Gere show her the proper way to use them.  I read so many photography forum posts on the  internet from people blaming their equipment for their blurry out of focus wildlife photos and assuming their lens or camera is not working properly.  I suspect the majority of the time they haven’t spent the necessary time and effort to learn how to use their expensive new camera equipment properly.

Continue reading “Mine’s broken”

It doesn’t often snow in West Texas, but strange things happen, and if you live long enough you’ll see some of them.  This winter we had an unusual visitor,  a Snowy Owl in West Texas.  In early December I was out with another photographer at our local wildlife preserve taking photos of birds when he told me his daughter had seen a large white owl in the parking lot of their church the day before.  I told him it was most likely a barn owl as they are native to the area and can be white or very light in color.  When he pulled out his phone and showed me a video she had taken I could hardly believe what I was seeing.  To my disbelief, the video showed a large Snowy Owl.

Continue reading “A Snowy Owl in West Texas”

Was out this afternoon looking for things to shoot.  I didn’t come across Wile E Coyote  but I did  I come across a Road Runner or Chaparral.  According to the Audubon website, the roadrunner is the most famous bird in the southwest, featured in folklore and cartoons, known by its long tail and expressive crest. The Roadrunner walks and runs on the ground, flying only when necessary. It can run 15 miles per hour, probably with much faster spurts when chasing a fast-running lizard or other prey. Its prowess as a rattlesnake fighter has been much exaggerated, but it does eat a remarkable variety of smaller creatures.

Continue reading “Beep Beep”

The local wildlife preserve has an unusually diverse flora and fauna given its size and location.  One mammal that is native to West Texas and the preserve and always a treat to see, is the Bobcat.  On most days I arrive just before sunrise in order to increase my chances of seeing one but today I was a bit later due to heavy fog.  Shortly after arriving, walking down the trail, I noticed movement and discovered a single mature Bobcat was ahead of me on the trail.

Continue reading “Everybody wants to see a cat”

One of the most iconic lines from the 1986 movie Top Gun. If Maverick had been out shooting  geese in flight, instead of shooting  planes with Goose, his top priority would still have been the need for speed, but a few other things would have come in handy as well.  Almost every wildlife photographer starts out photographing birds. Birds are the most readily accessible and abundant wildlife in our environment.  In the beginning capturing a simple still portrait like the cardinal below is challenging and fulfilling.  If we manage something sharp and clear we’re satisfied and happy.  Sooner or later though we become comfortable with the techniques associated with still images, and there is a desire to challenge ourselves further.  For birds this means capturing birds while in flight.

Continue reading “I feel the need. The need, for speed.”

I have a friend who is an interior designer by trade. We were looking at art prints one day to put on the walls in my office. As we looked through stack after stack of prints,  he suggested several that I might choose, always with an associated reason for why I should pick each one. Continue reading “If you like it, buy it.”