Not just spice mind you, but the spice of life. variety is the cornerstone of my life and I have no doubt I have used this title before. I didn’t check, because I really don’t care. When I like something, I will surely do it more than once.

After a few weeks of birds, birds, birds, and many weeks of specific subjects, such as macros, flowers, winter, and on and on, I thought it was time for me to get back to what I really love about image making, and of life. Variety! A variety of subjects, treatments of those subjects, and a variety of thought and feelings.

I always loved exploring the scenic wonderland of our national parks. Still, I long ago noticed that the same (in the U.S.) locations were captured repeatedly by literally thousand of photographers.

Often Theodore Roosevelt N.P. in North Dakota is ignored. In addition to a lot of great wildlife, this place can be an inspiration visually, as to its landscape as well.

When we go to great locations such as White Sands New Mexico, quite often we make those powerful “big picture” images and forget to reduce the park to what makes it special. White gypsum sand dunes, and So Tall plants are signatures of this place. The shadows are important in this image.

Simplicity can be complex in so far as how we describe what are seeing and feeling.

Then there’s shooting near home.

Using sunrise or sunset to create silhouettes of shapes, be they soft and pleasing, or harsh, craggy and a bit scary, was one of my favorite pastimes.

Everyone given the chance, even if that chance happens to be in a public zoo, is always ready to capture the likeness of a great animal, in its entirely.

With this elephant in a zoo, it was the eyes and especially the craggy texture of the skin that held my fancy. I can almost “feel” the skin on this critter.

I always had a love of creatures that most photographers don’t like. The female Snapping Turtle below was about to become a mother, and I was charmed by her face, and especially her eyes.

I always treated wildlife with respect, and I would often discover these ladies at a roadside, digging a nest for there eggs. I would park away from her, set up and shoot and move on. Of course they have a nasty bite and I was careful. I almost always managed to get some shots and leave before anyone else showed up, but if they did, I stayed to make sure they did not disturb her,

Then there are frogs. I loved frogs even more than turtles. This Leopard Frog was at the side of a parking lot if memory serves, which it usually does but increasingly does not. Either way, we had our time together and then I said goodbye.

To prove this post is about variety as in the spice of life, I will share a manmade subject.

I loved the way this old lighthouse sat on a hill with the last rays of sun gracing it.

If memory serves and as usual, it often does but sometimes does not, that was either during a workshop that I and my partner taught, or the day before when we were scouting locations.

Either way, I clearly loved the drama of the light, and the design of the architecture. .

Into The Storm

This is in the Utah desert. You will never know if you can do it, or where you’ll wind up, unless you drive the road. Sometimes the gamble is worth the journey.

May God Bless,
Wayne