Getting your gear from home to shoot safely is important. So is not beating yourself up in the process. This simple video is designed to share how I go about that and in the process give you idea how you can do the same with your gear locker. Enjoy!

Philmont Scout Ranch is smack dab on the Santa Fe Trail nestled in the beautiful Sangre de Cristo Mountains, NM. Reaching over 14k feet in height they afford an amazing view and even more brilliant backdrop for our photographic adventure 07-11 Oct, ’24. I love this place and so thankful this is our third annual photographic workshop at the historic scout ranch. This intensive photographic training covers landscape, critters (amazing bison herd you stand right in the MIDDLE of!), historic structures, portraits, flash, heavenly bodies and daily digital darkroom instruction. And that’s just for starters! It’s a small class, five days of instruction, lodging all for $995! Click here (scroll down to October and click on Scouting the New Mexico Landscape with Your Camera ) to register but do it quickly (registration is handled the Philmont only). There are just a few seats left. Yeah, it’s that great! Cya there!

A month ago we heard about all the fawns born surrounding our home but we saw none. Then a couple of weeks back, the first fawn showed up and played pickaboo with us. Now a month old, all the fawns are here nearly all the time and could truly care less we’re out and about. A little background, their moms have been coming to the homestead since they were fawns, one actually being born on our front porch. The does are doted on with apples (during summer only) to the point that when they hear me out with Maggie, they come literally, running up to me. Well now, we’re out doing outside chores and the whole gang comes up to us even with Maggie being Maggie. They’ve not gotten nose-to-nose like you see the twins doing here (they are seeing what each other has been eating by checking their breaths) but they are four – five feet away from each other. Maggie chased their moms a couple of years back when she was younger but now coming up on four, she’s mellowed. I’ve been going out with the Z600f4TC to give the fawns space to get used to me. Well, that’s now too much glass as they are coming right up to me. I’m switching to the Z100-400 when I go out now because they’re just hams now!

He and the Mrs’ are at our suet feeders continually now their kids are almost full size and ready to fledge. We put in stumps and feeders to encourage the Pileated and other woodpeckers and we enjoy their company so much. And they are so darn friendly, I just walk up to them with the Z 9 / Z600f4TC (handheld) and photograph them at will. But we want to watch a nest, an active nest. We’d love to photograph one as well. This pair’s nest in on another’s property and not accessible to my lens which is a bit frustrating. While they nested closer then previous years but all we get to see is feeding, lots and lots of feeding. For all that food all we ask is for a nest. Would a little gratitude hurt?