Oct 4, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
When most hear the name Bighorn Sheep, they think of those high up in the Rockies, butting heads in the snow and braving the cold. The Rocky Mountain Bighorn is a spectacular creature but they are rivaled by their desert cousin, the Nelson’s or Desert Bighorn Sheep. My life long fascination and love for Bighorn began with the Desert Bighorn way back in ’84 when I was part of a translocation, there to document and work the move. When you are sitting on three animals (that’s a heck of a story) and one of them kicks your F3T out of your hand while shooting, you tend to have a whole lot of respect for that critter. I fell in love with them that day which still goes strong today.
As you might imagine, finding let alone photographing Desert Bighorn Sheep requires going to the desert. At the same time, finding them in that vast space when they move about so much is a huge challenge. There are a few locations like in Palm Springs and by Hoover Dam, you find small bands that are well known, but by and large they are a secretive species. That’s one reason why I’ve not gone after them for decades with a camera, just watched them every now and then with bins. Another reason is they live in a rugged word where triple digits and vertical faces are the nicest things you can say about their habit. This doesn’t lend themselves to a quick pic.
One well known but guarded secret place to find the Desert Bighorn Sheep is the Great Basin Nat’l Park. That’s where we found them for a couple of days until they moved downrange to forage. For those couple of days, we had a herd of ninty head, rams and ewes which had come together at the beginning of their rut. When sex is in the air, a big, white Suburban is not even noticed bristling with 180-400VR out its window. The time we had with the herd was the finest Bighorn Sheep photography I’ve ever experienced!
On the last day of our trip, the sheep were gone from the locales where we had been working them. After many hours, we finally found them downslope foraging and new greens and in a locale, there was no way we could access. I talked with a range manager a week later to find out they had walked over the mountain and were in a valley that was accessible by helo only. We lucked out with our three days with the herd, but what a magical three days. You can see more images from my time here but this is just a fraction of what I shot and doesn’t come close to fulfilling my love affair with this noble king of the desert.
Oct 2, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Ever since I saw my first photo of a Northern Gannet over thirty years ago, I’ve longed to see it with my own eyes. Bird Rock at the Cape St Mary’s Ecological Reserve is the site of the Northern Gannet nesting colony. Just a tad short of the eastern point of North America, this lone sea stack starting in May, is the home to forty thousand plus Gannets for the few months they come off the sea to set forth the next generation. It’s a sight and sound I have longed to witness and it is nothing like I imagined. It is so much more!
The photographic challenge smacks you right in the face when you walk up to the edge. How do you tell the story of this natural wonder, nesting Northern Gannets of Newfoundland? Standing back and shooting the entire coastline (Z6 / Z24-70f2.8) is one option but then, who are all the white dots? You focus on just an individual, even one propositioning a hopeful mate (D5 / 180-400VR), and you lose the mass. I’m a couple of days into this challenge and after the first day, I knew I was close, but no cigar. The second day I was closer … I have more days to tell the story in my photos of one of many.
Sep 26, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
The Alaskan Sea Otter is an incredibly charismatic critter that you simply fall in love with the first time you see them! The first otter biologist we worked with called them Teddy Bears of the Sea and the next biologist called them the Clowns of the Sea. They are both and so much more. When you’re on the water with them, they share their world with you as they sleep, eat, swim and of course, constantly replenish the air in their thick coats. It’s soooo easy to get caught up in all of this as you watch them in your viewfinder and forget the one very important element, the background.
Sea Otters tend to have light-toned heads, more so as they get older. Since the mind’s eye goes to light and bright first, this basic physiological characteristic makes it really simple to make the Otter in their watery world pop in your photo no matter how small it is in the frame. That’s unless you lose track of the bright highlights/reflections of the water surrounding them. That’s not to say those reflections from the sky need to be entirely eliminated, but minimized doesn’t hurt your visual storytelling. You want your viewer’s eye going to just one place in your photo, to that cute Sea Otter!
Photos captured by D5 / 180-400VR from Karls magnificent boat on Kachemak Bay, AK
Sep 18, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
Back in the ’80s after I had bought the 800f5.6 EDIF, I was haunting the rocky shores of Monterey a lot. Being on the edge of Monterey Bay, there are small little pockets of birds, not particularly rare, just rarely seen and even more rarely photographed. They grabbed my imagination, especially the little Black Turnstone. A tad smaller than your fist, I got a photograph of one way back when that I’ve always truly enjoyed. And for decades that one image satisfied me, until about a year ago. I had never gone back and looked for or photographed the Black Turnstone since them early days. Last year, I got the hankering to go and improve on my old photo. I’m glad I did!
Living at the splash zone on the rocky shore, those rocks and splash are very much a part of the Black Turnstone. The three elements I need to tell the story are already dictated, I just had to combine those elements to tell its story. Shooting with the D5 / 180-400VR hand-holding, I was able to get out on the rocks easily. I then looked for the Turnstone on good looking rocks with a great splash background. Then watching the biology, made the click with that small gesture came to life. While I have a new favorite Black Turnstone image, I won’t wait that long to go back and improve on it!
Aug 16, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
These two, three-year-old cubs are doing what cubs do so well, mess around! What many interpret as “fighting” is no more than working off lots of energy and boredom. Coastal Grizzly Bears are an amazing critter with such a complex yet simple biology. They are the perfect couch potato, just eating and sleeping. That’s true for all except the cubs who don’t really have to work hard to gather food as mom does it all. And like any kid with idle hands, they get into trouble. It’s really easy to place human emotions and reactions to their movements when there is nothing more complex than play at hand.
We were all alone on the Inlet beach with this family of four for nearly five hours. They really could care less about our presence and went about their daily routine which at this time of year, goes with the tide and the Pink Salmon run that had just started. I truly enjoyed hearing all the sounds of the family as they were an expressive bunch. Shooting with the Z6 / 180-400VR, I could hear it all even when shooting as the Z6 makes no noise. It was a 4200 images morning that really didn’t capture all the memories quite as well as my mind and heart. Oh well, I just gotta go back … gotcha in my spell!
Aug 8, 2019 | Wildlife Photography
The ride over was a bit on the bumpy side, but Carl once again worked his magic and put us in a calm bay with a raft of Alaskan Sea Otters. These amazing creatures make their life seem so good as they just float about on the surface, sleeping the day away. But it’s a hard life and they work very hard to maintain their body heat through lots of food and that gorgeous, thick coat. Shooting off the back of Carl’s boat, with the D5 / 180-400VR, he would ever so slowly back us into the raft and give them time to get used to us in order to get the shot. It was once again, an amazing experience with these clowns of the sea!
