50/50 I have never shown this image before.  It is part of a long line of marsh sunrises I have made.  I always figured if I was going to be at the marsh for morning bird pictures, why not a little earlier for sunrise. It usually proved to be a wise decision. I believe this one was made at Necedah NWR.  Notice my composition has sky and water divided almost in half. There is some ugly pond weeds that live at what would have been the bottom of this scene.  I believed (and still do) that this comp works at 50/50 because of where the clouds are and where the reeds are. They keep your attention away from the land/water division. Did you notice the 50/50 split before I mentioned it?

I think I have shown this Badlands sunset once before. I made several traditional rock form sunsets with a little only a little bit of black showing and decided to go for an Earth Images type sunset instead.  With all of that black showing, I purposefully ran sort of a corner to corner composition. Notice I did not divide the light and shadow exactly in the corners. The image would have been considerably more static with that comp.

No the leg isn’t broken on this Western Grebe.  In 2008 I found this fellow in a Kenosha, Wisconsin harbor.  After making some pictures I posted  my find on a Wisconsin Birding group list, as this bird is far out of its proper territory. Over the next 24 hours about 30 birders visited this location. Birders are a breed of their own. Unfortunately the 20 minutes or so I spent with the bird seems to be the only time it was there.

I’ve only photographed one Reddish Egret in my life and that was on the Texas Gulf. It was as scruffy as could be, it had that “I’m mad at you” look on its face, and the light was horrible. Just the same I love photographing new species and I remember making these 2006 pictures like it was yesterday.

I love abandon farms and ranches as photographic subjects. I found this isolated and abandoned adobe ranch house in New Mexico one crisp winter morning.  When I roam looking for wildlife and landscape opportunities I am always looking for signs of human history. This seemingly dead ranch was filled with life…at least i felt I could hear the cowboys/vaqueros starting out on horseback to “move the herd“.  Places like this are alive.

Winter is on its way to Wisconsin. I will close with this old images of the Pike River in winter.

We all have different tastes, but I am a cowboy at heart and I found a Christmas special on PBS called Christmas on The Trail or something similar.  Just a bunch of modern-day cowboys sitting around a campfire and paying homage to the season.  Cowboy musicians, singers, poets and story tellers.  My kind of Christmas.

“I see reason for sorrow and realize that hope, like character, takes years to build—and minutes to shatter.”  Dr. Ravi Zacharias

I thank you for stopping and I hope you will return.  Wayne