Hualapai Canyon descends over 2,000′ during the 11 mile journey Nick and I were together for another adventure when I took this photo. We had spent the previous day and a half hiking through Hualapai Canyon to arrive at the famous Havasupai Falls in Arizona. The 22 mile round trip hike was well worth it […]
It’s a little different for me vs. the hundreds of other volunteers. I sent the Executive Director a letter in 2008 suggesting the hours at the Wildflower Center (WFC) were the worst for fine art nature photography (9-5). I suggested they grant me 24/7 access to the center and I would give them rights to use all the photographs I take there. They liked the idea and I’ve been going there on average 2x per week since 2008. I usually arrive before sunrise and shoot for 1-2 hours until the wind picks up or it becomes too sunny. I prefer calm, cloudy days for what I do. I shoot images at the WFC for a few hours then come home and post process them for an hour or two. The WFC uses my images for wall art, web, email, publications and banners around the center. They first used my images to hang in the courtyard restrooms so I usually tell people I got my start with restroom art.
Since 2008. It’s a beautiful place and very quiet and peaceful when I’m there. There are hundreds of volunteers that do hard labor to create a wonderful nature experience. I get to take advantage of that so it is a very symbiotic relationship. I’ve taken over 12,000 pictures at the WFC.
Hummm. There are many but if I had to choose one I would say sitting on my stool in the middle of the arboretum looking up at my favorite oak tree with the sun rising behind it. Quiet, peaceful, colorful, inspiring.
I look for anything that is interesting and I try to capture an image that I would want to look at over and over. It might be a tree or an insect or a wildflower, grass, reptile, mammal or interesting shapes or colors while walking around. I might have a general area of the WFC I plan to visit on a particular morning or I just get out of the car and start walking around. I’ve never gone home without taking some interesting images….even in December and January. In the end, I like to take pictures where you look at it and just go, “wow”.
Nikon D800 and D850. My favorite lens is the 200mm macro. I also carry a wide angle, 24-70mm and a 70-210mm. I use a Uni-loc tripod, cable release and I carry a knee pad. I also have small gentle clamps to hold wildflower stems so the wind won’t move them. I do post processing with Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop and I do focus stacking using Zerene Stacker. So, for the type of photography I prefer to do I’m on a tripod 95% of the time and shooting with a cable release, kneeling on a knee pad. Pretty simple.
I enjoy looking closely at nature so I’m drawn to macro photography. I usually shoot in the range 1:1 to 1:4. So macro and close up. I like out of focus backgrounds and tack sharp subjects. That is why I like calm mornings so I can get sharp images and overcast so I get good color saturation and less super high contrast. I don’t shoot people, birds or nudes. Lately, I’m taking more wildflower focus stacks. Shooting at wider apertures and changing the focus plane taking multiple shots of the subject and then combining them in post processing. This technique produces nice soft backgrounds (bokeh) and tack sharp subjects. You control what you want in focus and what you don’t. It helps to eliminate distracting backgrounds so you can highlight the subject better.
When you take a portrait image of a person you like to put them in the best light and try to make them look a little better than they normally do ;). I do the same thing with wildflowers. I try to make them look the best they can. No insect damage, in great light with no distractions in the background. I often try to line them up so there is a similar bloom in the background WAY out of focus behind the bloom I’m focusing on. This puts a similar blurred color behind the bloom making for a more interesting but non-distracting background. You can see that style in many of the images I have taken. Sometimes I bring interesting botanical subjects home and shoot them in a white box at 5x or 10x. Then you really get to see botanical structures you can’t see with your naked eyes. It’s a whole other world when you get really close.
I would say I really don’t have one favorite but my favorite ones are those where I remember the time and place when I took the picture and the picture itself takes me back to that time. I also like the pictures I’ve taken where the view is so close you see things that you normally wouldn’t see with the naked eye or images that tell a story.
I don’t really know. I guess you would call them on the phone and ask how you could get involved. I interact in person with the staff very infrequently as I’m usually leaving when they are arriving. We wave a lot.
*Volunteer opportunities can be found here: https://www.wildflower.org/volunteer/
The beetles were taking full advantage of [the prickly pear flowers] This photo was taken at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center in Austin, Texas. These beetles are feeding on a prickly pear flower. The prickly pear were in full bloom, and the beetles were taking full advantage of one of their main food sources […]
Supai is surely one of the most remote cities in the United States My brother Nick and I, along with my good friend Andrew found ourselves refreshing our computers on February 1st over and over again waiting for the permit process for Havasupai Falls to open up. An hour in, we had secured camping/hiking permits […]
I was out for a hike…looking for bees Getting close up with butterflies was not what I was expecting at the start of the day when this photo was taken. I was out for a hike with my brother, Nick, looking for bees. He’s studying bee diseases (that’s my simple description of it) as part […]
The most extreme weather on Earth Mount Washington in the White Mountains of New Hampshire is said to have some of the most extreme weather on Earth. People training to climb Everest often spend time on the slopes of Washington to condition themselves for the limits of wind, cold, and snow. When Matt and I […]
Matt and I were diving at Nubble Lighthouse Finding a flounder on the floor of the ocean is always exciting for me. Flounder are a type of flat fish that spend their time living on the sea floor. This particular fish is a yellowtail flounder. I spotted this flounder while Matt and I were diving […]
This pillar coral was at the core of bio site 7 Dendrogyra cylindrus a.k.a. pillar coral is found in the Caribbean Sea and the western Atlantic Ocean. This particular structure is found in the Dominican Republic southwest of Bayahibe. I took this photo in 2011 as part of a site assessment of the Morales “shipwreck”, […]
The trail had a five foot base of snow As Matt and I emerged through the tree line of the trail up to the summit of Mount Liberty, we found ourselves looking down on the icy forest below. The world around us was blanketed by a thick layer of snow. Before starting our journey, we […]
Our goal was to make it to the top, and the weather was making a good attempt to stop us When Matt and I were on our way down from the summit, he described the hike as 95% tree tunnel. There was no doubt about it, the summit was on our mind all day. Our […]