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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.

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

As we discussed in the last blog, sometimes when you set out to photograph wildlife you have no particular animal or bird in mind to photograph but simply have a location from which to take photographs.   This may be the local park, a  wildlife refuge, a lake, or a friend’s ranch.  I’m fortunate to have access to a vacation home in northern New Mexico.  It lies on about forty acres of pasture and forested land with a small creek along one side. The large pasture out back is it’s own ecosystem with  a variety of animals, insects and birds.  It is a great place to employ the technique of simply concealing oneself, standing and waiting for wildlife to present themselves to be photographed.  In effect it gives me the opportunity to be ” a man out standing in my field”.

Continue reading “How to Wildlife Photography Techniques ; The Wildlife Photography Apprentice, a man out standing in his field : Part 1”

When I post photos of the wildlife I’ve taken on the internet or show them to friends and family, they often elicit comments along the lines of, ” You sure were lucky to see that”, or ” I can’t believe you saw that”.  Renowned entrepreneur and venture capitalist Peter Thiel once said, “I am a great believer in luck. The harder I work, the more of it I seem to have”.  People who aren’t wildlife photographers don’t understand that finding wildlife to photograph is not random or by chance in most cases.  It instead takes significant work to put yourself in the right place at the right time.  In effect,  luck favors the prepared wildlife photographer. 

Continue reading “How to Wildlife Photography Techniques ; The Lucky Wildlife Photographer”

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”