Photographers mostly look for good light, including beautiful sunrises and sunsets on a pleasant day. But what about inverting that perspective and seeking strong winds, snow, and storms in the deep of the winter? This article shows the different results you can get by photographing wildlife in extreme weather conditions,...
Essays and Inspiration Category Archive - Page 4
The Wonderful World of Bat Photography
What comes to mind when you think of bats? Mysterious flying shadows or blood-sucking vampires? The truth is that most people know very little about bats, even if they live in their backyards. Most wildlife photographers don’t pay much attention to these misunderstood animals as they flit by. In fact,...
Photographing the Kingfisher in Paradise
There aren't many birds that anyone would recognize at a glance. Many groups of birds are so inconspicuous, the differences between species so subtle, and their behaviors so mysterious that even nature lovers struggle to identify them. Kingfishers are different. As soon as you learn what a kingfisher looks like,...
Birds to the West of Rio de Janeiro
Near the western border of the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro lies the small coastal city of Paraty. It is surrounded to the north by forest and rugged cliffs, and to the south by the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. I went to this charming city as part of...
Revisiting Ice Crystal Photography in a Frozen World
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.
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.