All the world’s a stage…

A month ago I made a post asking some questions about wildlife photography ethics, most especially the how, when, and why of staging shots using captive animals or controlled conditions. Audubon Magazine decided to one-up me on this topic and posted their own article, naturally going into a little more detail than I did (but I brought mine in under a much tighter budget, so there!)

To their credit, read more

Summer trip, the wild ones


Lest you get the impression that all I could get photos of during our recent trip were captive animals, I feel obligated to show off the beasts captured au naturel – which actually means “naked” I think, which also applies, but isn’t exactly what I meant. Anyway…

The NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher features read more

Summer trip, the captives

This past weekend The Girlfriend and I took a three-day trip out to the beach, in this case the Wilmington, North Carolina area. Wilmington is the shortest beach drive from the center of the state where we live, features the best aquarium, and is only a short distance from Topsail Beach. Topsail is of interest because it’s the home of the Karen read more

Another interlude


I’m just doing this to break up long strings of posts unrelated to nature photography. You know that means that yet another will be coming up next, I’ve just been taking my time completing it.

Just remember, no matter where you are, an insect may be watching you. Whether they’re judging you or not depends on how mellow they are.

Which makes me wonder what could horrify a damselfly, read more

A brief interlude

The other day I chased a pair of Southeastern Five-lined Skinks as they ventured around the opening of a hollow tree outside my place. I was hoping to catch some feeding behavior, but it was not to be.

However, on examining the photographs in detail after unloading, I noticed that the breeding male (distinguished by his bright red head) had done exactly what I have, far too many times when walking read more

I’m not sure what happened

So, here’s the scene. Several years ago, I was living in Florida and trying to get steady income, and one of the avenues I explored was working as a wedding photographer. I was working alongside a couple of established photographers in the area doing backup and creative shooting – photojournalistic style, candids, B&W, that sort of thing.

One particular morning, ten minutes before read more

On composition

If there’s one thing that I emphasize above all else in photography, it’s composition. Don’t just take a photo, but put the elements together within it to your satisfaction. This, to me, holds up far more than what kind of equipment you’re using and how technically proficient you are with it. And it’s not an easy thing to teach – I’m still at the point where, read more

The stage is set


A couple of posts ago, I mentioned the concept of staging shots in nature and wildlife photography, and I’m finally getting back to tackling that as a subject. I’m going to attempt to throw some things out there for consideration without inserting too much personal opinion into the mix – we’ll see how that goes ;-)

While I don’t know if it has ever been measured by read more

Happy Birthday Hubble

Twenty years ago today, the space shuttle Discovery carried a brand new telescope aloft into space, to be settled into orbit the following day. And this was a significant delay over plans – the Challenger accident had occurred only eight months before the tentative launch date of Hubble in October 1986, and set its schedule (as well as everything else) back several years.

The telescope was read more

Things that go burp in the night


It’s been longer than I planned since my last set of posts, and I actually had something else intended this weekend that didn’t work out – basically, my telescope was way the hell out of collimation. For a reflecting scope to work properly, the mirrors have to be precisely aligned, otherwise you can’t get properly sharp images. It’s still not up to read more

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