I am attempting to include photos in many of my posts, which have either not been or seldom been seen.  If from time to time, they are of a lesser quality than previous shots,  please excuse.

I have certainly shown a couple of hundred pictures of Red Foxes in 2008-2012. Today’s choices have either seldom or never been shown before.

A few years ago I was privileged to make quite a few images of Eared Grebes.  This opportunity came at Arapaho NWR in Colorado.  The background/foregrounds for those pictures were mostly terrible.  For that reason I have shared very few pictures. This is a shot of both parents with baby.  Once again the background/foreground is hideous, although the light on the birds is nice.

Pelicans make great subjects for photographers.  They are big and not too hard to get close to.  Most of all they fly in groups (usually) and they are slow flyers.  All of that combined means that opportunities for people with cameras are abundant.  Below we have two similar but very different pictures. In the first shot they were almost above me. I used a 500mm f4 lens with no VR/IS and manual focus.  I bring that up because this photo was made hand-held.  No time for a tripod here. I was outside the car and attempted to quickly position the camera/lens on the roof of my car. I fire with my right hand and hold the lens with my left.  That means I focus with my left thumb. The second photo was made closer to ground level and in nicer light.  I was in my car and my trusty Wal-Mart pillow was my support.  That pillow has held my camera and my sleepy head for many years.  It is tired and about done now, but I am grateful for all of those years of service.  Who else would thank a sofa throw pillow? LOL

You gotta have “Heart”….the Wilson sisters.  Wilson’s Snipe.  You baby boomer/rockers (Darlene?) know what I am talking about.

This is a very old slide image of an extremely dew covered butterfly, and is as you can see, a somewhat radical one.  You can tell it is a flash picture and that was very intentional.  I over used the flash to create a sparkle on every dew drop, and create a black background in order for those colors to pop.  I thought a little creative vision was due in this shot. I intentionally did not use multiple flash to light the background. A natural light version of this picture has been published in Wisconsin Trails Magazine as a part of Jewels of The Morning. That was a portfolio of dew covered close-ups of mine that was once published in Trails.  The natural version was also published “somewhere” else, but where, currently escapes me.

Dramatic sunrise clouds cover Lake Michigan and the Pike River.

I wonder just how many mornings I have spent waiting for the light to add color to the sky.  I peered into my slide files the other day. Between 35mm and medium format sunrises, my unofficial count stands at about 5,000.  That is not like digital files. The junk hit the trash long ago.  As near as I can tell, I have shown 15 of those on websites/blogs/forums etc.  Those do not include sunrise/sunset at memorable places like Utah, Colorado, Tennessee, etc.  Passion (and an early rising) will produce colorful results, and a lot of them.

“Photography…much like life…is the art of blending discipline and freedom” Wayne Nelson