It seems like I have been writing a lot recently about clean and simple compositions.  There are images that will not fit that template that are also important.

Flowers make some of the best “busy images”. Flower pictures with out of focus flowers in the background, whether they are definable flowers or simply out of focus washes of color, make a powerful statement.

The images below are of wild Lupine. Both shots took me quite a while to find a composition where I could place one sharp blossom in front of several soft ones.  The background flowers were either too close and rendered too much detail, or were not in the frame at all.  Even in an image like this, I attempted to find a sort of chaotic order. For me it was worth the effort as I enjoy this style of imagery.

Lupine leaves also provide artistic possibilities.  I always look for these plants after a rain, but a dewy night makes for wonderful visuals in the morning.  All three of these images were made on the same morning at the same location.

I think every bird lover in North America likes the American Goldfinch.  The seasonal color differences in males is fairly significant.  Still I enjoy them in both seasons and I’ve never passed on an opportunity to glorify them in pictures.  Whether it’s an American Goldfinch or a puddle of melting ice, it all about being partners.

There is nothing like a Kestrel on a winter’s day with a blue sky.  Everything is crisp and definable.  When you think of all the light conditions that nature provides over the course of a year, the job of the photographer is never done.  Just trying to convey your personal vision of all that varying phenomenon is a lifetime project.

Some of the best times of my life were spent chasing after images of Short-eared Owls.  I got my first SEO images in 1992 at Bong State Park here in WI.  From 2005 through 2008 I made many attempts at several locations with a few good images and many good friends to show for it.  One afternoon at Bong one of my best opportunities arose and below we see two pictures from that day.

This was my first Snowy Owl. I found her just after dark at Bong on a dismal winter’s day in 2005.  She remained at this location for about five weeks and gave a lot of birders a thrill.  I was out expecting to find the daily afternoon flight of SEOs when I spotted her sitting in a tree.  I never made a great picture of her, but I got in some nice practice for Snowies that would come later.

A mixture of sunshine, clouds and rain made for an interesting photo (and day) at Monument Valley, Utah/Arizona.  My goal here was to make a dramatic image that displayed those varying phenomenon, by spreading out the land.  I was satisfied with my results as I have been with most of the images I made at MV.  It is difficult not to make good pictures here.

There are certain places that are very special to me.  High in the western mountains of North America is my favorite, but peering over the edge of a western canyon, is not far behind.  Dinosaur National Monument in Colorado/Utah has a lot of those canyons.  I could sit and ponder life, at the edge of a canyon forever.

The original Foxy.  This one fox helped start a four-year expedition for Wisconsin/Illinois wildlife photographers.  When this shot was made she had five nursing kits in an underground (under rock?) den.  She would sneak upstairs for a few moments away from the little ones and would often drift off to sleep right in front of me.  Sometimes she would drift off while she was still standing.  Having all of those kids (kits) are exhausting.  I photographed many other foxes and I made better pictures of them, but she remains the queen of my heart.

I was just thinking (already the 2nd time this year) the other day .   The internet has so changed the way we look at photography.   Pretty much whenever you view images on the web, you start with a thumbnail or some small photo and click up to a larger size.  This blog is of course an exception to that rule.  When I first went online, I like everyone else, noticed that the thumbnails that are colorful always look inviting.  Then when we click to a larger image, we might find some technical issues or even compositional problems that were not originally visible.   After I found myself spending more and more time viewing pictures, I realized that there are just as many thumbnails that seem lackluster and uninteresting, that enlarge into beautiful or powerful images.  We click on the colorful high contrast thumbnails or on the shots of frame filling wildlife portraits, and often miss the best images out there.   We never see the gentle ethereal landscape that is without eye-popping colors. We move past the thumbnail of wildlife that are small in the frame, but may artfully convey something about the life of a family of birds.

I still click on those colorful pictures or those with a full frame view of a wild animal, but I learned to spend at least as much time viewing the larger version of those thumbnails that did not impress me.

If there is anything that I miss as much as the actual act of doing nature photography, it is teaching workshops. Being a workshop teacher was often an up and down experience.  I loved teaching the Xs and Os of photography.  I have never found a photographer who could create what I call art, without understanding depth of field, exposure and so on.  I never knew a painter who did not understand paint, and brush, and canvas, or who didn’t understand the technique of shading or overlapping as a way to show depth.

In the 1940s Henri Carter-Bresson changed the landscape of photographic art to include 35mm.  I am grateful as I would have hated to have had to use my beloved medium and large format cameras for everything.  Just the same Carter-Bresson gave birth to a new group of photographers.  Some were street photographers and other were building photographers and so on.  There are artists in every new group of photographers but most of this group were simply lazy.  A select few from the group helped to open our eyes to other possibilities but most only wanted their out of focus and poorly composed imagery to be considered art.  Art is born of a mating of other things.  Your instincts, your heart and your brain.  Art is difficult, not easy.

Nobody can teach art.  Expecting that from a teacher is like expecting them to tell you who you are inside, after knowing you for a few hours or a few days.  Knowing who you are is your job. Nobody else can do it.

After teaching workshops for almost 20 years, some successful and some not, I think I can truly say that neither I nor any other teacher is any better than our students.  We are there to plant seeds.  No more, no less.  It is up to you the student to nurture that seed and to make it grow.

Some of my former students have become great artists.  I have never mentioned it on these pages but my great friend Darlene was once a student.  I think Darlene has a unique vision, and a mastery of the always important technical aspects of photography.  Bring the two together and you have artistry.  The credit for Darlene’s art has nothing what so ever to do with me.  I was no better than my student.   In fact students make their teachers (seed planters?) look good, not the other way around.   I often criticise photographers who spend their life and their money going from one workshop instructor to another, hoping the teacher will find the magic switch.  You and only you can flip the switch, and don’t let anybody tell you differently.

The opinions above are mine and only mine. There is always room for disagreement.

I’d like to give a special thanks to all of those students who made me look good.