I made no attempt to share a theme with today’s images. A little bit of everything is sort of what I am about, so here we are.

Just about everybody likes owls. Unless of course they live in your neighborhood and they kill your cat or dog. Yes, that does happen.

Today’s images however are not about wildlife behavior, they are about random imagery. How the mind of one (demented?) man with a camera looks at, and more importantly sees the world around him. With one exception, the natural world.

Snowy Owls are not only a popular subject when they can be found, but they have a sense of “humanism” in their behavior, including the way they will look us straight in the eye.

This little male was found by me a long time ago. I have never forgotten him as he sort of became a friend to me. I made many an image of this particular bird.

Human beings seem tp relate even better to other mammals. Even the four legged kind.

These are siblings and mom and pop are not far out of the picture here.

Memories can be sweet, and that is what cameras are for.

A while back I shared an American Bittern image with the bird doing its camouflage trick by standing still with its head pointed upward. The problem was it did not really blend with the plants around it. Below we have another bird who is better at selecting backgrounds.

The world would be a worse, and a smellier place without scavengers. I found this and other Turkey Vultures cleaning up a group of dead fish that washed ashore from a river, during a flood.

I spent countless days and countless hours driving or hiking just looking for something like this.

Gee, I think this frog knows I see him! I am not sure if I am observing the frog, or the frog me. I spent many happy hours with frogs and turtles.

My focus had a narrow margin with this subject in this pose, Even at f22. The eyes became the primary purpose of the image.

The close-up world of spiders, insects and/or their larvae, provides hours of fun and exploration to be captured in imagery. The photos sell well because they are needed in guides and other books, and not that many photographers have an interest in this subject.

I only had a couple of photographer friends who shared my love and fascination with these sorts of subjects.

Sunrise is a most glorious time of day. Much of it is lost while photographers lie in bed.

There are waterfalls and then there are waterfalls.

There are an uncountable number of ways to look at, and photograph a waterfall. My ways often differed from the crowd. Natural design from God, and the photographic use of light are what this image is about.

Okay, now I am just being silly. Right? I was fascinated by the way those bristles on the branches were highlighted from the backlight, and the shape and design of the branch, and the artistic way it drooped, and the color tones in the out of focus background.

That’s a lot to like about an empty branch. Right?

How boring the visual world would be if we all liked the exact same things.

Okay, out final photo is not nature, and it is not natural. You caught me.

My visions (and yours too?) often are a bit strange, but they still remain, my visions.

I shot this image of a light house well after sunrise. I visually placed the sun, where I wanted it to be by physically moving my camera, tripod and myself around, I took my exposure from the brightest spot in order to turn the lighthouse into a featureless black monolith, and I probably, as I remember not, added more contrast in the editing process. Finally, I subtracted all color and made a rather spooky giant beast, rather than a pretty light house.

Sometimes you just gotta have fun.

May God, Bless, and have a happy New Year
Wayne