Newest Photography Blogs (166)

While it is chilly with blustery winds today, the ice & snow is almost completely gone now, as spring gets even nearer.
The following photos were taken by me several weeks ago, when temperatures were much more frigid albeit less windy.

The initial 5 photos below are of a Great Blue Heron standing on a mostly frozen pond to get dinner through the only unfrozen area of that pond.

The last two shots were taken while taking crunching walks into the woods to find
stream 'winter wonderland' scenarios. I hope you enjoy them.

By the way, clicking on the photo will restore it's original clarity.
This site seems to reduce that when I post them here.

If you like, add a caption (or captions) for the following photo.

My first offering is; 'The last time Fido ever called Boots a "pusssy" '.

Here's the photo;


Have fun

These were taken by me a few days after the huge snow storm, that we had in New Jersey a month ago.
There's STILL some of that snow left on the ground.

At the time almost everything was covered with a blanket of about 18 inches of snow.
The rare exceptions were where the plows had pushed snow off the street and got low enough
to scrape the ground. Food for wildlife was scarce. But these 2 knew where to find some.

May I present to you my fine feathered friends, Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal;

The last one of thee was a lot of fun with several good captions.
So, here's another nature photo. This one of a polar bear.
Again, if you like add your own suggestion(s) for the caption.
Or simply enjoy the creative offerings by others.

My first caption is; "Hey you. Give me a kiss and you get a special.....bear hug."

Here's the photo (not mine);

Or perhaps she found me, or maybe a bit of both.

It was a really nice day today, very sunny and somewhat warmer than it's been recently.
I ventured out to do some food shopping, check my post office box, and take some photos of the local wildlife.

Regarding the latter, I walked through the woods near Carnegie Lake and found some deer lying ontop of the snow in the woods, near the edge of a property.
Before that I was taking photos of gulls on the lake ice and while doing that, a juvenile black mink walked by within 2 feet of me.
It happened so quickly, that I didn't get time to switch lenses and photograph him. Searching for where he went came up totally empty. Perhaps there was a den nearby, that I never found.

As I walked more in the woods, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a large bird fly.
There were a lot of trees in the way, so I'm still not 100% sure what it was.
However, as I walked another 50 yards or so, I saw an adult female redtail hawk perched on a fairly low branch, perhaps 12 feet up. She was intently watching me. I surmised, that perhaps she was the large bird I saw fly earlier, and that she circled around to come back behind me. I did notice a fairly large nest near the water's edge shortly after she flew.
So, I deduced, that it might be her nest, perhaps having eggs in it.

Either way, I took a lot of good photos of her. Eventually she flew off, higher up, not all that far away. As I crunched my way through the snow,
to get closer to her for more shots and get the sun behind me. She took off again and flew even higher up and on the other side of a canal.

I knew what she was doing. She was trying to lure me away from her nest. Bright bird ! It worked.

On my way back to my car later, I met some fishermen and talked with a couple of them. One young guy and an older one.
The older one is a professor at a university, a fellow biologist (different field) and he also does some work for a private research firm.
He's thinking of retiring early. I told him, that's what I did and I love it. We also talked photography.
I showed him some of my photos that he loved and said that he often sees different birds while fishing that he would love to photograph. He said he has an old Canon Rebel, but wants to upgrade.
So, I gave him a business card, and told him that if he needed advice on cameras & lenses to contact me.

All in all it was a fun day. I hope your Wednesday was good too.

The day before we had the huge snow storm here in New Jersey, I went to a park in Somerset, NJ,
that I had not been to in a couple of years. Unfortunately, they are currently dredging their 2 larger
ponds. There's little water and cranes are digging up the mud.
So, although there are usually a significant amount of waterfowl and other water related mammals,
there was next to nothing that day there. Near the parking lot, there was one mockingbird, who
was apparently too cold to fly away. Thus, I he patiently posed for me.

I did spot one great blue heron. But, he just looked angry that his feeding pond was a horrible mess.
Nonetheless, I ventured around the current huge mud pit to get some photos of him on the sunny side of him instead of from across the huge muck depository.

On the way there I encountered a herd of 11 deer, who initially ran away from me, but didn't run far at all.
Several years ago, I was essentially functionally part of their herd. I accomplished that with frequent visits
and the initial visits were literally running through the woods to catch up with them repeatedly,
while letting them get comfortable with my presence gradually. I would never get too close to violate
their personal space. But, I convinced them, they they could not shake me from catching up to them
and when they ate leaves I would act like I was eating leaves. Little by little they accepted me and
would not run away from me when I approached and gradually allowed me to get closer.

Years ago I got lots of great pictures of them. But, it has been several years. So, I was not surprised,
that they may have forgotten me. However, they didn't run far from me and when I encountered them again on my way to the great blue heron, they did not run again, despite me not running initially after them.
I got within 15 yards of them. There was the matriarch, who is the boss of the herd, and she paid little
attention to me, so the others did the same. There were a few yearlings, male and female fawn from earlier in the year and 7 does from earlier years.

There was one young doe, who I figure was almost 2 years old. She became very curious about me.
If I could read her mind (which I can't), it was something like, "that's a human. Why isn't the herd
running away ???" So, she slowly intentionally walked up to me, sort of acting like it wasn't me
she was curious about, but a leaf here and a branch there, without taking her big brown eyes off of me
and getting progressively closer. At one point she was standing perhaps 10 feet from me.
So, despite it being in the forest, I took a lot of photos of her while softly speaking to her.

After this encounter, I walked away and found the heron again and took a couple photos of that bird.
However, the heron was partially hidden by brush on it's sunny side. So, those shots were less satisfying.

When I went to walk back to the car, I encountered the deer herd again. They did not run away at all
and again, the same doe came walking up to me and stood only 10 feet away. I thanked her for being such a lovely wild model, and left very pleased, that perhaps the herd may have somewhat remembered me after about 2 years.

There are 3 other herds that are closer to me, that know me well. I see them frequently and vice versa.
But, this Somerset herd was the first one that I attempted to become a herd member and successfully achieved that. I successfully applied what I had learned to the other herds.

Here are some photos from that day, including one of the mockingbird, a mallard drake in a stream that ran off of one of the lakes, and one of the heron.
The rest are of the doe I mentioned, which I named Curiousity.

Add your own caption(s), if you like, for the following photo (not one of my photos),
or just enjoy the eventual suggestions by others.

My first suggestion is;

"How dare you ! My feathers do NOT make my butt look fat !"

My favorite type of photography is wild animals.
It can be very challenging to get close enough with the right light angle,
with the exact camera setting to best display their subtle colors and patterns,
and to also get them to be comfortable enough to get them in normal behavior, ignoring me.
I find it quite challenging and that's part of the reason I enjoy it most, as well as
being as one with nature.

But, I've done lots of different types of photography.
Indeed, weddings, real estate, and other types of photography are a lot easier
and pay more too. Thus, I do that sort of thing also.
Indeed, I will be doing some weddings again this summer.

Of course, I can't show you photos of people that I have photographed
without them signing a release form.
Otherwise one opens themself up to possible litigation.

But, there's no problem in that regard with wild animals nor
inanimate objects. They generally don't have attorneys willing to take a photographer to court.

I remember many decades ago one winter going around my neighborhood at the time
and photographing the holiday lights put on front lawns or roofs.
They came out alright and I guess it was somewhat fun at the time.

A couple of weeks ago I got the idea to again photograph holiday lights, but in a totally different way.
What I did is to set the shutter speed to be long 1/2 second to 2 seconds and have the background dark.
Then, I simply moved the lens, so that the lights became trails over the time set,
I tried several different lens motions. Here are 5 of those photos.
Let me know if you like any. I plan on using them for something else.
More on that another day.