Sometimes I think I sound inconsistent when I talk about nature and photography. One time it seems as though nature is everything to me and on another I show images that are not of nature at all. I guess going back to the beginning would be appropriate.

I was a lover of nature long before I was a photographer. Exploring the natural world was the best way imaginable for a kid to spend a summer’s day.  When you are only small, it is natural that the tadpoles,  Garter Snakes and grasshoppers of the world is what you will find.  I think the macro photographer in me was born when I was three years old.

I came to serious photography when I was 19 years old. While my very first subject was nature, I quickly began photographing architecture, sports, trains, cars, antique farm machinery and anything that I found to be visually stimulating.  I began professional photography immediately, doing real estate photography and things like weddings. Nature was always there and at the top of my fun list, but not my photography list.

In the mid to late 1980s I made nature my priority. I would be standing in the infield ready to photograph a car race, and I would find myself looking at a butterfly taking nectar from a dirty (from racing) clover flower, or spending more time noticing the sunset than the cars. I was only a part-time pro at the time so the bigger money that was available from commercial photography, was not necessary.  I have always been happy with that decision because nothing moves me like nature.  I am always happy when nature is my subject.

I believe because I was a photographer first, it meant (in those early days) that I made the kind of nature shots that photo editors and print buyers wanted.  As much as I love nature, there is a point when any subject, including wildlife, ceases to be what they are and instead they become a visual and graphic illustration. That comes from the photographer in me. Get to know your nature subjects intimately, but then see the lines, textures, shapes and more that make them what they are.  One of the reasons that I tell “would be nature photographers” to visit sand dune parks like Coral Dunes, Great Sand Dunes, Death Valley and White Sands, is that graphically pure visions will jump out at you.  Patterns, colors, textures and other aspects of the dunes will help teach you to look at all of your subjects that way. Another reason that the photographer first concept can be good is that I always look at the whole picture. It is easy for a “nature first” type photographer to become so engrossed in the subject (animal, flower, etc.) that they do not see the entire picture.  It is “the whole picture” that everyone else will see.

The down side of the photographer first concept for me  was that I knew very little about birds. Birds quickly became my number one subject.  I spent a lot of time wandering around aimlessly before I learned what I would find, and when and where I would find it.

If I would have made pictures until I was 100, I would have always made images of non-nature subjects as well as nature.  I am a photographer.  I would have remained a nature-first photographer, because that is where my biggest passion lies, but anything that fuels my photographic fire is good.

I have written somewhere between 600 and 700 articles (over 300 here, excluding Ron’s) since I first came to the World Wide Web.  I have sung the praises of photographing  many different nature subjects in many different ways.  Story telling photos.  Pure art.  Animals, plants and the land.  I’ve also written about keeping the photographer in you alive by photographing non-nature subjects.  I guess that all seems kind of confusing.  My “larger point” has always been that we can pretty much do it all.  Telling those stories of nature does not mean that we cannot make images for the pure love of art.  Being a nature photographer does not mean that there are no other subjects that are important, or that we cannot create images of other subjects just to keep the photographer in each of us stimulated.  My number one piece of advice for a nature photographer?  Don’t limit yourself. You can do a lot more than you think.

I’ve made a lot of pictures of birds with their reflections. If they stay around a while, they almost always stop being feathers and beaks (bills) to me and become color and design.

I was having the time of my life photographing these wild female and young Bighorn Sheep. I was making close-ups and I was searching for behavior. They walked away from me and into some very beautiful autumn grasses.  There was a slight rise in the prairie with a gentle curve to it.  The grasses had a slightly different tone and color on each side of the hill.   As the sheep walked along the rise they stopped being sheep and became part of a landscape. Shortly after this photo they broke this formation and went for a drink of water and they once again became wild sheep exhibiting behavior.

You can certainly work graphically with manmade subjects.  I was recording the feel of history at the Pecos Ruins in New Mexico.  Eventually I changed my way of viewing Pecos and began to think and see graphically.  Playing warm and cool colors off of each other. Texture and design. This was no longer a historic building.  Before I left Pecos, I was once again enchanted by the history of the place.

Flowers might be the most important nature subject to look at graphically.  There are so many different ways to see and photograph any particular flower, that it will serve you well to compose shapes, shadows, colors and patterns, instead of flowers. Find the flowers and tell the story of their habitat and natural history, then make pictures like a graphic artist.

These final three were made on 6/16/12

We are all different and life would be boring if that was not the case.  I only share the way I look at nature photography because I have done it for so long, it might help newer photographers, as they search to discover their own personal path on this wonderful journey.

They say that it is where you finish that matters, not where you start.  I concur but I would add that it is the journey itself that is the true prize

I would like to take this Father’s Day to remember (and miss) my Dad. Happy Father’s day to all of you Dads out there!