Continuing on with my long used and never ending portfolio of photos, and what they mean to me, here we go again. My next post will feature Christmas.

In my most recent article I showed an image of a male Caspian Tern with a fish. He was attempting to bribe a female to mate with him. A ceremony that answers the question on how do we keep this species going. If the female is slow to react, like maybe sushi isn’t enough anymore or she has a headache, the male generally just  swallows the fish. Why let a good fish go to waste. Today’s image shows the actual act of bribery.

In the world of “little critters, procreation is no less important. One of our jobs as nature photographers, is to capture and then share with the world, how this species or that one, keeps themselves supplied with new members of their society. In the end, it’s pretty similar among all members of the animal world.

These Milkweed Beetles were not shy about showing me how it is done. I made my pictures, and moved on. Every couple has a right to some privacy.

Insects spiders and such, make great subjects for “dewy” photos. For me, ,my favorite thing to do when I came upon a dew covered “little critter”, was to get in super tight and show dramatically just how choked in dew they really were. One must be extremely careful of tripod legs, our own legs, and anything else that might touch the subject or anything that connects to the subject, so that we do not knock all of that beautiful dew off their bodies, before we make the photo. Nothing less than crisp and sharp images will do if we want to display dramatically what a summer morning feels like to many small creatures.

When in macro mode, make good use of your time spent.

I do not know what this is, but I love examining subjects up close. Maybe an exotic plant, most likely a weed. Even with a scene as simple as this, composition is important. I especially wanted an aperture which would render the subject reasonably sharp, but the keep a very bust background as soft and unobtrusive as possible.  Your depth of field preview lever can be important here.

There are little plants, and then there are big ones. Living ones and dead ones.

The “white desert” of White Sands New Mexico provides photographers with all sorts of opportunities. There is both life and death on those dunes and finding  the stories that exist, and sharing them, is the job of a photographer.

I’ve shown a lot of streams and waterfalls on this blog. Mostly I show motion blurred water and sharp rock. This is a river in the Rocky Mountains. Headed downhill. I felt it absolutely essential the rock, that “Rocky Mt. rock” if you will, be tack sharp for this image. I wound up not with blurred water, not with crisp water droplets, but with something in between. Sort of reality but not quite. I actually like this almost reality like image, and while it’s never going to win any awards or even accolades, variety is the spice of life.

This is a great opportunity to end our time together with a sunset. Most of my images are sunrises. So which is this? I am guessing, and only guessing, as I know not where this was created, it is a sunrise.

Like any image concentrating on a natural feeling balance, in this case between the row of trees, the big tree, the sky its varying tones, and the clouds, along with an exposure that seems natural but beautiful, was the job at hand. I am sure that I was just happy to be there at that moment, to interpret what I saw so I could share it with you.

May God Bless,
Wayne