Photography education - The Wildlife Photography Apprentice

September 7, 2019May 6, 2024

Wildlife photography: Photographing Burrowing Owls, getting lost in the eyes of your subject.

I think it was Humphry Bogart who said, “She had the kind of eyes you could get lost in”. I love to photograph owls for a lot of reasons but mostly because of their eyes. They have the kind of eyes you can get lost in. When beginning to photograph wildlife it’s important to understand that an animal’s eyes are the most important part of the composition of a wildlife photo. Because of their large prominent eyes, owls offer a great opportunity to practice this principle. Owls, however, are very reclusive nocturnal creatures for the most part which can make finding them and subsequently photographing them quite difficult. There is one species of owl however that is relatively easy to find and is active during the day. The Burrowing Owl. If you want to practice your wildlife photography and work with a subject that has great eyes, then burrowing owls are just the trick.

March 31, 2019May 6, 2024

Wildlife photography: The I-20 Wildlife Preserve

If you have ever been to West Texas then you know there really isn’t much to look at. You can literally drive a hundred miles and not change elevation more than 10 feet. For the most part, it’s dry and arid. The average yearly rainfall is about 14 inches and not a lot can grow in those conditions. Every once in a while though you’re lucky and you find an oasis in the desert.

August 1, 2018February 10, 2025

How to Wildlife Photography Techniques ; The Wildlife Photography Apprentice, a man out standing in his field : Part 2

The sun was due to rise at about 6:00 am the next day, so I was up early to position myself. Hidden at the base of a large tree at the edge of the field, I sat listening to the sounds of the morning as sunrise approached. I adjusted my ISO to achieve an acceptable shutter speed in the low light conditions, and I waited. It wasn’t too long before I heard the noise of large animals moving through the brush down by the stream. Soon a number of what are the largest members of my field ecosystem began to wander into the pasture. A small herd of elk.

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February 8, 2018December 27, 2024

A Snowy Owl in West Texas

It doesn’t often snow in West Texas, but strange things happen, and if you live long enough you’ll see some of them. In the winter of 2017, 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.

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