Many of my recent posts have a common theme. The commonality between those posts is not actuallythe theme….but the lack of a theme. There is nothing I would rather do than travel through my digital folders, and throw darts against the wall, seeing what sticks.  My next move is to write whatever comes to my mind about said picture. With some photos it may be what I know or don’t know about the subject.  With others photos my words might impart the story behind the photo. With still others it might be the technical information or the esthetics of the finished composition. It is the mind of “a wanderer” that I share, and I hope there is something that you can take away from each post.

Photographic Subjects  Every photographer is different and that is just how it should be. I’ve made it no secret that of all the subjects that I have photographed, it is nature and human history that are my favorites.  They are the subjects that I feel spiritually connected to. I enjoy making a good picture of anything, but nature and history are different for me. Those subjects keep me grounded and not too full of myself. That is solely because of my reverence for them.  When I create a good image that people like, I always feel as though I have to share the limelight with the bird, or the landscape. That’s a good thing.

Art  Art is one of the most difficult subjects there is to discus.  It is a matter of opinion. I use to frequent art museums on a fairly regular basis. There are of course those paintings, photographs and other things, that most of us have a hard time describing. I would not suggest that there is no artistic merit to those pieces, only that trying to shock or disgust does not in and of itself, make a work, a work of art.  We have a large bevy of standup comedians that can do that.  Also I think artists in any medium who try too hard to look artsy, wear thin quickly.  I do think the art that has been accepted for generations as great, was born of hard work. It may just be that the old standard of people who make the difficult look easy, are the real artists among us.

Six Minutes  What a difference six minutes and 202mm can make. The first shot of Great Sand Dunes was made with a zoom lens set at 220mm.  The second was made a few minutes later with an 18mm lens. I did not move the tripod.  Logic might dictate that these images would be made (and shown) in the reverse order.  Normally when I shoot landscapes I work from wide to telephoto.  Sometimes it’s okay to think backwards.

The King + The One That Got Away  I have seen thousands of elk in my life, and made my share of elk images.  All of my pictures are of the well-known Rocky Mt. Elk.  One morning just before sunrise I was making my way into the Hoh Rainforest in Washington State and a bull Roosevelt Elk with 7 or 8 cows crossed the road in front of me.  The view was brief, and the darkness of pre-dawn combined with the thickness of the rainforest left me with no images. These elk are about 33% larger than the huge Rocky Mt. Elk. They will remain forever one of my “the one that got away” species.

Two consecutive early morning drives into Aransas NWR on the Texas Gulf brought me a wild boar standing in the road. After seeing him the first morning, I returned to the exact same spot the next morning.  Just like many previous times in my life, using that plan, rewarded me with the same animal. I was also rewarded with the same quick dash into the forest. This time I grabbed my tripod and pursued him into the thicket but he was already long gone.  Yes just another “the one that got away” story.  That trip did bring me animals like Javelina, Armadillo and more.  I have had more near misses that can be imagined with Golden Eagles and Bobcats.  I guess saying the one that got away, would be a misnomer.

This Rocky Mt. Elk was photographed in Yellowstone N.P., Wyoming.

Honk Your Horn  There are a lot of great roads in America. This one is in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  A short telephoto (70mm) was used at f14.  That provided just the right framing, with enough visual compression to draw the background towards the viewer, and enough depth of field to keep everything in focus.

Hiding In The Grass?  Not So Much!  A nice close encounter with a Sandhill Crane in Columbia County, Wisconsin.  One of many species that despite making hundreds (likely thousands) of images of, I have never turned down the opportunity to make yet another picture.

Pardon Me!!  Snob!  Mute Swan.

Ring Around The Moon.  The lunar ring you see in this picture was not manufactured by the photographer.  All of my  moon pictures that early December a.m. came out like this. It was a slightly foggy, and very frosty morning.  I suspect, but don’t remember, that all of the sky had a thick dew point like the ring.   It’s just that the moon filled the sky with light within the path that you see.  I used my Nikon 500mm lens with a Nikon 1.4 converter. The image was shot at f14 at 1/10^th sec.  I obviously used a tripod.  The old rule of thumb is that an exposure of one second or longer will produce a fuzzy moon.  An image like this could be made at f4, because the moon is definitely at infinity.  Infinity with a long lens means that you focus all the way out, and then back a little until you achieve maximum sharpness. This corrects for any barrel distortion in the lens. I had been struggling with getting subjects at infinity sharp, only one day prior to this.  The f14 aperture was a security blanket.  I solved the focus problem later in the day, by tightening down the critical focus wheel on the lens.

More Fall  There are so many ways to capture the season.

The first image was created on film a long time ago. I believe it was made in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Fallen leaves are a big part of the story of the season.

Three different versions that I have created of this autumn view of a river and bridge, have graced the covers of three different magazines. This is a 10 minute drive from my house.  Often you know the area around home so well, that your most successful images will come from that region.  That is certainly true of wildlife and macros, but often of landscapes as well.

Snow Ain’t All About Landscapes!  Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the subjects we photograph in spring and summer are nice with a fresh rug of snow under foot. Caught this Cedar Waxwing a couple of years ago.

The letter below is from the founder of Hobby Lobby.  This is a store that in my professional photography days, I frequented for a variety of materials.  I am not including this letter because of the specific subject of religion and related matters. There are parts within the substance of this subject that can effect millions of American companies regardless of any religious beliefs, although one would think you could run a business in America, that coincided with those beliefs, without punitive actions meant to punish.  I know it has become popular in America to hate both Christians and “big business”.  Forget the specific beliefs of this company and how many people they employ.  Try to ignore their more pointed and heart-felt beliefs. The CEO is not telling you what to do or what to believe. He only wants the right to function in a “free nation” in accordance with his own beliefs.  He has no plans to harm anyone in the name of his faith, only to stay true to his belief system.  When/if you read the letter below, try to read “all of the words”, and not just see the part about religion and God.  I know many of you are not offended by the term God, but I also know that there are those today who are.  In America you have every right to hate those who refer to God.  Let’s just hope that people like those at Hobby Lobby still have rights as well.

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