A few months ago on Photography Life, I wrote about my experiences photographing a sheet of crystalline ice structures on the frozen surface of a pond. Not long after writing that article, a rare sunny day with a bright blue sky sent me out to the pond again.
Essays and Inspiration Category Archive
Portraying Misunderstood Animals Through Photography
As photographers, we have a unique ability to impact how people perceive on our subjects. Some of the most magnificent animals on the planet are also some of the most feared, but it doesn't have to be this way. With my photography, I try to tell a story about my...
A Day in the Life of a Landscape Photographer
I’ve just published a new video on YouTube called “A Day in the Life of a Landscape Photographer.” This video has been a long time coming; it’s our first in over two years! And it’s paired with the announcement of a major giveaway that I’ll be doing later this year. You can watch the video below.
Photographing the Muskox in a Winter Wonderland
The muskox (Ovibos Moschatus) is a massive arctic animal. It weighs up to 400 kg (880 pounds) and measures up to 2.5 meters long (over 8 feet). Although it lived across Europe during the last ice age, it went extinct on the Eurasian continent around the same time that the...
Balancing Work and Photography as a Field Researcher
During my one month as an intern at the Crocodile Research Coalition in Belize, I did not take one photo of a crocodile. My group spent most of our nights conducting surveys, searching for the two species of crocodiles present in the Placencia Lagoon to research their populations. We would...
Photographing Critically-Endangered Fijian Iguanas: A Trip Report
Thousands of miles from their nearest iguanid relatives, and across the Pacific Ocean, live the marvelous, critically-endangered Fijian iguanas. I was fortunate to find and photograph two of these species during my time in Fiji. With their extreme rarity and remote populations, almost no high-quality photographs of wild specimens are published.
Photographing the Ring-Billed Gull: A Rarity No More
In North America, the most commonly-known birds are probably the Rock Dove, Mallard, and Ring-billed Gull. The Ring-billed Gull is also one of the most photographed birds in the world, being #21 in eBird’s library with over 120,000 photos! But did you know that the Ring-billed Gull was once fairly rare?
Ice Crystal Photography Documenting an Ephemeral World
Winter is often regarded as the doldrums for nature and wildlife photographers here in Michigan. Despite the unusually warm weather this year, opportunities for outdoor photography have been quite limited, often resulting in gloomy two-hour long outings in the wild yielding little more than a few images of withered brown...
Documentary Photography with a Fuji Camera (as a Nikon Shooter)
Fujifilm cameras are sometimes referred to as the poor man’s Leica. The retro design of some Fuji cameras reminiscent of the famous German camera brand, indeed, but their prices are far from it. Both brands, too, are very popular among street and reportage photographers.
The Alpine Marmot – A Story of Survival
The Alpine Marmot (Marmota marmota) can be nearly a meter long and weigh eight kilograms, or more than 17 pounds. These squirrel-related creatures inhabit the alpine steppes of some of the world’s most dramatic mountain ranges.