First of all, let me start this post by saying Happy New Year!  I hope 2009 is off to a good start for everyone and that the rest of the new year treats you well.

A have a few short but exciting announcements to make to start off 2009.

To start, I have accepted the role as Moderator for the Landscapes Forum on the website NatureScapes.Net.  I first joined NSN a little over three years ago and the nature photography community site has contributed greatly to my growth and development as a photographer.  I also met my sweetheart Chris Kayler through NSN.  Chris has been the single most important influence on me as a nature photographer and he deserves a ton of credit for the success I’ve had so far.  He’s inspired and motivated me without end, and I never would have met him if I hadn’t stumbled across NSN.  So it is with great pleasure and anticipation that I join the NSN family.

In addition to helping out with NSN I will also start to work part-time for its founder, Greg Downing, as an assistant with his photography business.  By working with Greg, I will learn a great deal about the business side of nature photography, something I’ll admit I’m not too saavy with at the moment.  Greg has some great ideas and I’m looking forward to collaborating with him on several projects in the near future.

On a personal note, I have started a new blog, The Backpacking Photographer.  Being a photographer and a backpacker has some unique challenges, among them specific equipment needs not addressed by either the backpacking or photography communities.  In The Backpacking Photographer, Chris and I plan to share in depth product reviews of equipment that may or may not meet the demands of photographer backpackers.  We also hope to share tips and techniques that address the specific requirements of backpacking photographers as well as images and stories of our trips.

Finally, I have updated my website with five new photos and fixed the Order Print buttons within the entire Reptiles and Amphibians gallery.  I am in the process of working on the other galleries and hope to have all of the Order Print buttons live and functional by the end of the month.

I’m back in Virginia now after spending four beautiful snowy days in upstate New York for the holidays.  We didn’t take any photos over our short vacation, as Chris and I both suffered from a stomach bug that had us sharing the bathroom nearly all day on Christmas.  Regardless, we had a great time and look forward to heading back sometime in January for a longer stay and some winter weather photography.

Christmas was good to me, and although I didn’t get any photography gear, I got a pair of vapor barrier mittens from RBH Designs, perfect for my too often cold hands, and some money, both of which will benefit my photography.  Chris also told me that he is going to take me to the White Mountains of New Hampshire for a four day photo vacation!  Now that’s a cool Christmas present!  I’ve wanted to head to the White Mountains for some time, and I’m super excited for the snowy getaway.  Chris has been getting me a ton of high end cold weather clothing, from my Montbell Down Jacket to my Patagonia R1 Balaclava for my birthday (both of which I tried out while snowshoeing in New York and they are just awesome) and now my Vapor Mitts for Christmas.  Pretty soon, I’ll be ready for any weather conditions North America can throw at me!

I’m now in the process of preparing for our trip.  Chris is doing most of the planning and research with the help of native New Hampshire photographer Jim Salge, but of course I want to know the areas we are going to and its important that I’m well prepared gear wise for the cold conditions in New Hampshire, a state I’ve never before visited. We plan to stay near Gosham, NH and will spend a lot of time in the White Mountains, photographing winter scenics, boreal birds, and other wildlife.  One of our targets will be the Presidential Range and Mount Washington, the highest peak in the northeastern United States at 6288 feet and official home to the world’s worst weather conditions, including record setting 231 mph winds!  There are also several pretty rivers and waterfalls we hope to check out (I got three waterfall guide books - to Pennsylvania, New England, and the White Mountains - for Christmas as well), and the White Mountains are excellent habitat for some northern birds we can hopefully coax close enough to photograph.  Overall I’m super excited for our trip and looking forward to seeing and photographing New Hampshire.

Just taking a moment to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!  I hope your day is filled with plenty of smiles, good memories, yummy food, and awesome presents.  Enjoy the holiday!

Yayyy!!!  It’s snowing!

I’m at home in New Jersey with plans to head back down to Virginia sometime this weekend.  However, that might be difficult… because of all the snow!  The weather stations have called for 3-6 inches of snow to hit the area today, with an additional inch or so tonight.  Of course, its difficult to know when to trust weathermen, considering they are wrong at least half the time, but this time it looks like they predicted right.  I noticed the first flurries out my window at 10:09AM this morning and its been snowing ever since then.  Right now I would stay there are at least three or four inches of snow outside and its still falling.

I had hoped to capture some wintery scenes of the snow falling during today’s storm, so I kept an eye out the window all day.  I wanted the ground to be completely covered with snow and was waiting for the snowfall to be just right.  When I looked out the window and noticed that the trees down the street were gray and barely visible through all of the falling white snowflakes, I knew it was time.  I packed up my landscape gear, threw on some boots, and headed out past the school field behind my house and into the woods.

Photographing during a snow storm can be very difficult.  First of all, the falling snowflakes blow everywhere, stick to everything, and then melt.  This can make it very difficult to prevent water drops from getting on the front glass element of your lens and ruining your shots.  Since the snow was falling rather quickly, I decided to do all my shooting with my 70-200mm lens knowing that the lens hood would help snowflakes from touching the glass.

The other tricky bit is, it’s hard to get anywhere when it’s snowing.  Today the roads were pretty slick, and without all wheel drive or snow chains, being on the road was pretty dangerous.  My mom told me she saw several accidents on her way home from work, which is just across town.  I’ve had enough close encounters with my Saturn sedan to know that it wasn’t worth the risk of trying to drive anywhere today, so I had to find somewhere within walking distance that would possibly provide some nice shots.  Lucky for me, right behind my house there is a large school field, and behind that a small area of marsh and woods with a creek. 

My goal was to get a shot that captured the falling snow and the feeling of the winter storm.  As I crossed the large snow covered field, making my way towards the edge of the lawn where a path led into the woods, I noticed a large solitary tree standing out against the falling white snow.  The distance between myself and the tree was filled with falling snowflakes, partially obscuring the outline of the tree’s bare branches.  It was exactly the shot I was looking for.

Unfortunately, the town had erected a fence around the woodline nearby just a few years ago, hoping I guess, to keep the students out of the woods and the wildlife away from the kids.  The ugly chainlink fence was topped with snow, and an obvious and offensive eyesore.  In order to avoid capturing the fence in my photo, I had to compose my shot with the branches on the right side of the tree clipped at the edge of the frame.  The result, I feel, isn’t as nice as it would be with empty space surrounding the whole tree, but it still captures the feeling of the winter snow storm.

Techs: Canon 1D Mark II N, 70-200mm f/4L IS USM, 1/160s, f/5.6, ISO 200.  To order this print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.

Last night I uploaded 15 new photos to my website, including a bunch from Cambridge last weekend.  This photo, my favorite action shot of the day, is one of them.  In this picture, a male Canvasback in full breeding plumage is tucking his wings back into his body just after performing a wingflap.  As much as having good portraits and straightfoward shots of different species is important for a stock collection, photos showing behavior and action are even sweeter.  Behavior and action shots do a better job of telling a story or illustrating something about the subject, and they are also much more interesting to look at.

To view my other shots from Cambridge, as well as a few other newly added photos, please visit my website and click on the “New Images” link in the menu.  If you take a look at the other new images, you’ll notice they are all photos of waders from Chincoteague.  Those photos were actually taken more than a year and a half ago!  I’m in the process of slowly revisting old folders and processing images to make my online stock collection more complete.  I have hundreds of perfectly good images that just haven’t made it onto my website yet, and I’m adding them bit by bit as I get the chance.  If there is something in particular you would like to see more of, please let me know, and I’ll prioritize shots of whatever species or locations are of popular interest.

Techs: Canon 1D Mark II N, Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, Canon 2x Mark II Extender, Canon 580EX with Better Beamer for fill flash.  To order this print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.

The Lesser Scaup is one of three new species of ducks I photographed last weekend on the Choptank River.  Like the Canvasback and Redhead, the Lesser Scaup is also a diving duck and usually feeds on mollusks and small crustaceans that live on the bottom of lakes and rivers.  It is a handsome duck, and the males are particularly striking.

This is my favorite scaup photo from Saturday.  I was fortunate that this male scaup was in full breeding plumage, so his markings and colors are very bold.  There were a few other scaup as well, including a drab looking female and one that might possibly be a juvenile male just molting into his adult plumage, but they were no where near as brilliant as the two adult males.  In order to emphasize how handsome this individual was, I used a little bit of flash to make his pretty feathers pop against the clean blue waters of the Choptank River.

Techs: Canon 1D Mark II N, Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, Canon 2x Mark II Extender, Canon 580EX with Better Beamer for fill flash.  To order this print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.

Good news!  After coming back home, uninstalling Adobe Design Premium CS3, running the Adobe Clean Script, and reinstalling CS3, everything works!  That means I can finally process my photographs from Saturday’s trip to Cambridge and share them with you.

I decided to start by working on my Canvasbacks.  I have the most shots of them, since they were the most prevalent species at Cambridge, and I was also really looking forward to photographing them.  I think Canvasbacks are a beautiful diving duck, very sleek with a unique streamlined shape and bold, colorful plumage.  In my opinion, the males’  light colored backs, rust colored neck and head, black beak, and bright red eyes also look best against blue water, the exact shooting conditions provided on the Choptank River. 

The females, admittedly, are a bit more drab.  Actually, the might be one of the most boring looking female duck species that I can think of.  But, they are still fun to photograph, and in order to provide variety in their stock files, bird photographers should try to get as many variations of a species as possible, including all types of plumage, males and females alike, and young and old individuals.  Even full body shots of plain brown female Canvasbacks on ordinary looking water!

Both photos shot with a Canon 1D Mark II N and Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, male with a 2x teleconver and female with a 1.4x converter.  Male at 1/800s, f/8, ISO 250 with fill flash.  Female at 1/2000s, f/6.3, ISO 320, natural light only.  To order either print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.

For my birthday yesterday, Chris and I met up with another local nature photographer, Neil Losin, and headed to Cambridge, Maryland to photograph ducks on the Choptank River.  We had a great day, with good light, little wind, and comfortable temperatures (or at least I was quite comfortable in my new Montbell 800 fill Alpine Down Jacket that Chris got me for my birthday).  I came home with good number of nice photos.  I photographed three new species, Canvasback, Redhead, and Lesser Scaup, and got a number of different shots of American Wigeon.  I also photographed a couple of Mallards and even a Horned Grebe from a distance.  I’m heading back to New Jersey today, so hopefully I’ll be able to reinstall Adobe Design Premium CS3 on my computer and get Photoshop and Dreamweaver working again, so that I can share some of my new photos.

Not much new here to report on.  I haven’t done any shooting because the weather just hasn’t been cooperating - Virginia winters are pretty lame as far as I can tell.  It’s been rainy, a bit windy at times, and the temperatures seem to be unusually warm.  It sure doesn’t feel like Christmas is right around the corner.

My Adobe products still aren’t working on my computer at all, but right after my birthday this Saturday I’m planning on heading home and hopefully fixing all that once I get a hold of my disks.  So, in the meantime, I’ve been doing a little work here and there on Chris’s computer when he is at work.  I’ll admit I’m pretty tired of the computer though.  I wanna go outside and photograph something!  Hopefully when I go back to New Jersey, I’ll get to see some snow and photograph birds at some of my local hotspots.

In the meantime, I’ve posted five new photographs on my website, which you can find quite easily by clicking the New Images tab on my navigation menu.  The dates appearing below the photos, as you can probably guess, indicate the day that the images were added and uploaded to my website, not the date the photograph was taken.  To view the image, click on the thumbnail.  This will link you to the individual page for that photo, within the regular stock gallery.  To return to the New Images page and view other new photos, you must either use the back button on your browser or click New Images link in the navigation menu like before.

I hope you’ll like this new feature, and I plan to use it regularly to update my website.  In addition to adding new photographs and the New Images page, I’ve also updated my stock lists.  All of the stock lists should now contain links to existing pages within my stock gallery, making it even easier to find the subjects you are looking for.

It’s finally December, so I figure it’s a fair time to mention Christmas and the upcoming holidays.  I just love this time of year!  No matter what religion you are, the holidays are a perfect excuse to eat delicious food, gather with old friends and family, and share happiness and good spirit.  And, they’re also a great time to ask for that piece of photography gear you’ve been eyeing all year.

My birthday and Christmas wish list always has a good amount of photography equipment on it.  Many of the items are completely unrealistic fantasy gifts, and I just put them on there on the off chance that everyone I know will somehow coordinate and I’ll end up with a $10,000 lens under my Christmas tree.  But I also always put several more affordably priced items on my list too.

So here are some of the photography related items on my list this year.  I’m sharing my list with you because, 1) I think it’s fun, 2) it might introduce you to some new products that you can add to your list, 3) it will give you some insight as to my views as a photographer as well as my vision for the future, and 4) if any of you are crazy and rich you just might buy me something on this list and then I’ll just be happy as a kitten.  Okay, so #4 isn’t a real reason, but I thought I’d throw the idea out there, just in case.

One item I’d really love to get is Canon’s newest full frame digital SLR, the 5D Mark II, scheduled to start shipping this month.  The 5D2 (as I’ll refer to it from this point on) replaces the 5D, the first full frame digital SLR that wasn’t designed solely for the professional market.  The 5D2 has Canon’s new 21.1MP full frame sensor with gapless pixel recording, ISO ranging from 50-25600 expanded with significantly less noise than older generations of digital sensors, and 98% viewfinder coverage, making it a great choice for landscape photography.  It also features live view and has the ability to record extremely high quality HD video.  Because it isn’t a 1D series “professional” camera, it lacks the integrated vertical grip that Canon’s other 21.1MP full frame beast, the 1Ds Mark III, has, but this makes it a lighter weight camera and more suitable for backpacking.  As a photographer who spends a lot of time outdoors and does a good bit of hiking, backpacking, kayaking, camping, and other outdoor activities, this is a huge selling point for me.  The 5D2’s price tag, at about $2700, is also one-third of that of the 1Ds3.  It’s hard to argue with figures like those!

Along with a higher resolution camera, I’m going to need faster, higher capacity memory cards.  12GB high speed cards, like the 12GB Sandisk Extreme III or Extreme IV Compact Flash cards, are readily available now and have become very affordable.

Many of the items on my wishlist are for photography backpacking trips.  My current tripod and ballhead setup are awesome for all around use, as they will easily support my heaviest setup.  For backpacking though, I really want to cut weight and bulk as much as possible.  So this Christmas, I’ve asked for a Really Right Stuff BH-40 ballhead (the little sibling to my RRS BH-55 LR which I absolutely love) and a Gitzo GT0541, a compact but strong carbon fiber tripod featuring Gitzo’s latest technology.

I also need a better way to transport my gear, especially on longer trips.  I’ve owned a few photography backpacks in my day, and to be honest none have really impressed me that much.  But ever since I started backpacking earlier this year, putting on my heavy Lowepro Photo Trekker feels like torture compared to a well made backpacking pack with a well made, well fitted, comfortable harness.  Besides, in order to do backpacking, I’ll need a “real” pack.  So, I want some protective padded lens wraps or neoprene pouches, like those made by LensCoat, for my camera and lenses, especially my backpacking setup - a 5D Mark II, 17-40mm f/4, 70-200mm f/4L IS, 25mm extension tube, and 2x teleconverter.  These will allow me to carry my camera equipment along with my tent, sleeping bag, food, cooking supplies, clothing, and other backcountry gear.

I also need to add a neutral density filter to my landscape kit.  In my opinion landscape photographers should always have two filters on them - a polarizing filter and a neutral density filter.  Polarizers are great for cutting through reflections and adding saturation to skies, foliage, and water.  Neutral density filters cut the amount of light transmitted to the lens, allowing for longer shutter speeds, perfect for waterfalls or dramatic skies with blurred clouds.  I currently use a Hoya Moose Peterson Warming Circular Polarizer, but I’d love to get the following filters from Singh-Ray - 77mm ring mount Lighter Brighter Polarizer, 77mm ring mount Blue and Gold Polarizer, and 4×6 inch rectangular 5 stop neutral density filter (maybe a 3 stop as well).

Another new item I’d really love to add to my gear bag is the Lensbaby Composer.  The Composer is the newest in Lensbaby’s line-up of special effects lenses.  Lensbabies are designed to allow photographers to creatively create softened, blurred, out of focus areas in a shot while still maintaining a sharp “sweet spot” in the frame.  The Composer is LensBaby’s easiest to use lens yet, allowing photographers more precise, fluid control.  I consider myself to be an innovative and creative photographer.  In particular, I love shooting abstracts and low depth-of-field macro photographs, so I think the LensBaby would be a great tool, and at $270, it’s affordable.

Of course, not all of the items on my wishlist are affordable.  Canon’s 800mm f/5.6L IS USM lens is one expensive beast.  But it’s sharp and smaller than a 600mm f/4 with significantly greater magnification.  I’d love to get one someday, but at over $10k its well out of my price range (and beyond the spending limits of anyone else I know for that matter).

On the other end of the spectrum, is a super wide angle lens that costs “only” $550 or so - Canon’s 15mm fisheye.  I think I could do some cool creative stuff with a lens like this, and fisheyes are great for underwater photography, something I’d really love to get into.  But in order to do that, I’d need an Ikelite underwater housing (for my brand new 5D Mark II).  Considering the camera just hit shelves, it will definately be at least another few months before any manufacturer has an underwater housing built specifically for it.

In addition to underwater photography, I want to try infrared photography and astrophotography eventually.  I don’t know much about astrophotography, other than it requires a bunch of fancy devices that move the camera at the same rate as the sky during exposure enabling photographers to get sharp shots of distant stars, planets, and galaxies.  So I’ll save those items for a future wishlist, far down the road, once I’ve actually done my research and purchased the more pertinent items I want or need.  I do know a bit about infrared though, and new infrared converted digital cameras make it easy to get into infrared photography.  Lifepixel is one of the leading companies doing infrared camera conversions.  So on my wishlist is a Canon mount SLR of at least 8 megapixels that has been converted to infrared by Lifepixel using one of their 720nm filters (if you don’t know what that means, check out the Lifepixel site for more information and a much better explanation than I am qualified to give).

Another item on my list with major cool factor is the PhotoTrap.  The PhotoTrap is an excellent tool for night and high speed photography because it uses infrared light beams to trigger the camera shutter.  Similar tools have been used by professionals for years to photograph nocturnal animals, highly secretive and elusive wildlife, and fast moving subjects.  With the PhotoTrap’s precise technology, it becomes possible to freeze the motion of a leaping frog, banking swallow, or diving kingfisher.  The PhotoTrap can even be used as a lightning trigger to photograph distant storms.  And at less than $500, its a great deal if you get use out of it.  Pretty cool, huh?

The last item on my list, but certainly not the least important, is the Xrite Eye One Display 2 Calibration Device.  Proper monitor calibration is important for processing photographs and my current calibrator, the ColorVision Spyder 2, really isn’t the best for LCDs and laptops.  On my laptop, I notice that my display looks a little too warm whenever using the Spyder 2 to calibrate it, but the native display, without calibration, is far too cool.  At around $250, the Eye One Display 2 is the most highly regarded affordable solution to color management.  There are even more advanced and accurate calibrating software and hardware packages out there, but they cost thousands, and if anyone is going to spend that kind of money on me (including myself), there are better things they could buy.

So, there it is - my photographic wish list for 2008.  Of course I’m not expecting to get most, if any, of these for either my birthday (just one week away) or Christmas, but I guess it can’t hurt to put it out there.  Hopefully my list may have given you some ideas for your own list to Santa, or maybe just introduced you to new products and new aspects of nature photography that you hadn’t before thought of or heard about.  Either way, I hope it was good read and that you get some of the new photography toys you have on your own lists.  Happy Holidays!

I’ve recently run into a problem with my Adobe Design Premium CS3 products.  I use Photoshop (along with Adobe Camera Raw) and Dreamweaver exclusively for working on my photographs and website, and now none of them work.  Here’s what happened.

While working on my website in Dreamweaver CS3 two days ago, I think Adobe Updater must have been running in the background. I was typing on my website when a pop-up showed up. I barely saw what it said because I hit enter in the process of typing (on my website) and the pop-up disappeared. I didn’t think much of it, figuring I would just run Updater when I was done.  Anyway, I closed out Dreamweaver and when I went to restart it I got an error message saying:

Liscencing for this program has stopped working.
You cannot use this product at this time. You must repair the problem by uninstalling and then reinstalling this product or contacting your IT administrator or Adobe customer support for help.

I get the same message when using any CS3 program and they all fail to work.  I contacted Adobe customer support and apparently this is a known problem with CS3 and CS4.  I followed all of their instructions to repair the problem, but to no avail.  I’m currently in Virginia and my CS3 disks are at home in New Jersey, so uninstalling and reinstalling the entire program isn’t an option at the moment.  I tried downloading the 30 day trial of Dreamweaver CS4, figuring I could temporarily use that and Photoshop CS4 until I go home again.  Unfortunately, the installation failed several times, so it appears I’m stuck.

So, until I go home again, probably in another week or two, there is a possibility that I won’t be able to share any new images on my blog.  I do have some cool ideas I to keep the blog going, even without photos, so I will definately keep posting regardless.  Also, if I get any really neat shots, I can probably use Chris’s computer (with a working version of ACR and Photoshop CS3) to process them so I can share them with you.  It’s just one of the many perks of having a talented nature photographer boyfriend!

Finally my new website is here!  Early this spring I decided to do a major overhaul of my website and since then I’ve been working adamantly on it whenever I get the chance.  One of my major goals for the new site was to have a comprehensive stock gallery that would allow me to show off a greater number of my photographs to potential buyers.  In addition to displaying more images, I wanted the stock gallery to be well organized and easy to navigate, and I also wanted it to be optimized for search engines.  I had hoped to have the new website up this summer, but various setbacks (my hard drive crash in March, my time consuming job, and my limited knowledge of HTML coding) delayed the new site’s creation and release until now.  So finally, after many hours and months working on creating the hundreds of individual image pages for my stock gallery, my new website and stock gallery are ready to be seen by the public!

Those of you who have been regular visitors to my new site will notice a few minor changes.  I changed the menu ever so slightly to make its design more compact, I created a new portfolio index page and also changed a few of the images in my portfolios, I updated my resume and stock lists, and I added a new link to my friend Alex Mody’s website.  The big change though, is my the addition of my new stock gallery. 

Designed to be easy to navigate, the stock gallery has multiple image categories and subcategories, each one linked via a thumbnail and paired text.  As you navigate through the galleries, a breadcrumb at the top of the page makes it easy to backtrack.  On individual image pages, arrows allow you to go from photo to photo.  There are currently 443 individual image pages featuring 399 different photographs in the stock gallery, and I plan to add plenty more photos in the upcoming months.

Despite all of the hard labor I have put into my website up to this point, I still have quite a bit of work to do.  My shopping cart and automated checkout are still being developed and as of right now, most of the order print buttons or text featured below each photograph do not work.  I also need to update my alphabetical stock list of flora and fauna species and create links on that page to species galleries.  Please ignore these inconveniences for the time being!

I encourage you to go ahead and browse around my new site (and tell all of your friends about it too).  If you notice any problems other than those I have specifically mentioned, please either email me or leave a comment on this post so that I can fix such errors.  I am also open to constructive feedback and suggestions about the website design and content, so if you have an opinion about it, please share!  Thanks and enjoy the new website.

This morning I went to visit one of my favorite nature photography interest sites, NatureScapes.Net (NSN), and discovered that my photograph “Glowing Fern” was named Image of the Week in their Digital Creations image gallery forum.  I don’t usually do a whole lot of digital manipulation to my photographs (and whenever I do I always disclose such information), but every once in a while I play around with my images when I get bored.  Usually, the results aren’t worth keeping, but sometimes I get a result I really like.  In this case, just adding a diffusion filter in PhotoShop improved this picture a lot from its original capture.

Here’s my winning photo:

And here’s the link to it on NSN: http://www.naturescapes.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=141854

Here’s another photograph from my Chincoteague trip a couple of weeks ago.  This will probably be my last blog post on the trip, because I’m hoping to get out and shoot around Virginia in the next couple of days.

My absolute favorite subjects to photograph at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge are the wild ponies.  Ever since I first read Marguerite Henry’s classic novel Misty of Chincoteague as a little girl, I had always wanted to travel to Chincoteague to see the wild ponies, and now I still get excited everytime I see one.  On my recent trip to Chincoteague, two wild ponies, a mare and another smaller pony, possibly her foal from this past spring, spent all day Saturday grazing along the beach drive.  While I’ve had close encounters with the wild ponies at Assateague National Seashore, on the Maryland side of Assateague Island, I had previously only seen the ponies on the Virginia side of the island from a distance.  So you can just imagine how thrilled I was to find these two in such close proximity.

Since the ponies were so close, I tried to get some unique of shots of them, different from the shots I already had.  Whenever possible, I like using wide angle lenses up close while shooting wildlife, as they give a different perspective and allow you to include the environment in the shot.  Since these ponies allowed a very close approach, I took a variety of shots of them with my 17-40mm zoom lens.

This shot illustrates the advantages of using a wide angle lens when photographing wildlife.  In this photo, the viewer gets a very clear picture of the habitat these ponies live in.  By including the environment in your photos, the resulting images tell more about the subject and this can make your images more saleable.

Techs: Canon 1D Mark II N, Canon 17-40mm f/4L IS USM, handheld.  To order this print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.

I’m now in Virginia and in a couple hours I’ll be feasting on a delicious Thanksgiving dinner with Chris, his mom, stepdad, and two kitties, Harry and Gremmy.  I’ve spent the morning baking apple pie, running around the neighborhood (literally), playing fetch with Gremmy (he’s one cool cat), and otherwise enjoying a low key, chill morning.  What a nice change of pace!

Anyway, I just wanted to take a few minutes to post and wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!  Hopefully, you will be able to share the holiday with loved ones and enjoy a tasty meal this evening, just like I will.  Oh, and in between bites, don’t forget to take a moment to be greatful for all that you have.  I know I am!

This past week has been somewhat of a transitional period for me, so I apologize for the long delay between posts.  Friday was my last day of work at Project USE for the fall season, and I have spent the past couple days packing up my belongings and spending some quality time with my co-workers before making the move back home yesterday.  In another day or so, I plan to head down to Virginia to spend Thanksgiving with Chris, his mom, and stepdad.

In the meantime, I promised I would share some more shots with you from my trip to Chincoteague.  This photograph, of a Mourning Dove, is probably one of my favorites from the trip.  I really like Mourning Doves and have plenty of them around my home, but they are quite skittish and rather difficult to photograph.  While at Chincoteague, Chris and I came upon a couple of these doves foraging for food in the dried grasses and pine needles along the beach drive.  Since nothing else on the refuge was particularly photo worthy at the moment, Chris carefully pulled his car up alongside where the doves were feeding.  Knowing the species was flighty, we stayed in the vehicle and photographed the birds from out the windows of his car.  I used a molar bean bag by Vertex Photographic (the best photographic bean bag on the market IMO) to steady my camera and shot my lens nearly wide open, in an attempt to diffuse the distracting background caused by my high shooting angle. 

Knowing the species you are photographing is important to getting good shots.  By understanding how timid this particular species is, I was able to carefully photograph the birds in a way that did not disturb them.  If I had gotten out of the car to shoot these birds from ground level, which would have resulted in a better out of focus background, they would have taken flight the second I stepped out of the vehicle.  Most of the time, any photo is better than no photo at all, even if it means the background or setting in the final shot isn’t perfect.

Techs: Canon 1D Mark II N, Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, Canon 2x Mark II Extender, 1/500s, f/6.3, ISO 250, natural light, bean bag.  To order this print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.

When all else fails on a trip to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, I usually head to the beach.  There, you can nearly always find gulls resting on the beach sand, flying overhead, or perched on one of the fences in the parking area.  So, when the weather on our recent trip to Chincoteague turned sour and animals throughout the rest of the refuge hid from view, Chris and I made trips to the ocean to see what was there.

On one of our beach drive bys, the sun began to break through the clouds and offer some decent light.  Some Great Black-backed Gulls had been hanging out on the beach, and I really needed better shots of the species, so I decided to focus on photographing them.  For the most part, the gulls stayed huddled on the beach, bunkered down to avoid the harsh winds as much as possible, but every once in a while one would fly by.  In order to maximize my chances at getting some shots of the birds in flight, I found spot between where most of them were flying and made sure to position myself upwind of the gulls, since birds generally prefer to fly into the wind whenever possible.  And I waited.

That’s the name of the game in nature photography.  Waiting.  You wait for the right moment, the right light, the right composition, the right expression.  You wait and wait and wait and hope it will all come together the moment you press the shutter.  And when its no more than fifty degrees out and the 25 mph wind at your back makes it seem a good fifteen degrees colder, finding the patience to wait for the right moment only gets harder.

But, the results are often worth it.  After maybe five or ten minutes, an adult Great Black-backed Gull flew right in range, passing by me just close enough to fill the frame with my 300mm f/2.8 IS and 1.4x converter mounted on my 1D Mark II N.  I managed to get a few nice shots of the bird in flight, like the one below.

I’m pretty happy with this shot, as it’s definately the best I have of the species.  I really like the wing position of the bird, the soft light, and the muted palette.  It just proves that good photographs (like all other things) are worth waiting for!

Techs: Canon 1D Mark II N, 300mm f/2.8L IS USM + 1.4x Mark II Extender, handheld.  To order this print, purchase stock rights, or view other photos I have for sale, please visit my website at www.karipost.com.

I spent this past weekend at Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, a preserve on Assateague Island off the coast of Virginia, just south of the Maryland-Virginia state border.  Chincoteague is one of my favorite places to photograph wildlife because of its wide variety of approachable subjects, so I try to make at least one trip there each year. 

The past three years, I’ve gone there in November to meet other nature photographers from the online nature photography forum, Naturescapes.net, for our annual Mid-Atlantic group gathering.  Highlights of our November trips usually include good numbers of Snow Geese, several species of waders including Great Blue Herons and Great Egrets, cooperative Cormorants, shorebirds, and plenty of gulls.  Unfortunately, in the past three years that I have been on the NSN outing, we’ve also had some pretty bad weather.  This weekend was no exception!  We experienced thick fog, plenty of rain, dark skies, and sustained 20-30 mph winds for much of the trip.  This combination of weather made photography pretty difficult (and camping on the island overnight quite interesting).  Even so, Chris and I spent many hours at the refuge searching for good subjects and suitable settings, determined to get some usable shots from the trip.

In the past, trips to Chincoteague have nearly always resulted in portfolio worthy photographs for me.  Even in bad weather, I’ve usually managed to create some unique image that stands out enough to become a favorite of mine.  Browsing through shots from my recent trip, I can’t say any quite make the mark this time.  Even so, I’m pretty happy with several of my pictures, and will be glad to add some new images to my ever growing stock gallery.

I’m back in New Jersey now, working the last few days of the fall season at Wildcat Mountain Wilderness Center before we shut down for the winter.  As I process my photos from Chincoteague, I’ll post them on my blog, so be sure to check back later this week to see my newest shots.

If you are a regular visitor to my blog and happen to be a person who pays close attention to detail, you may notice that my blog has a new look.  Over the past couple of days, I updated my Wordpress blogging software and made some small adjustments to the theme of my blog to make it look more similar to my website.  The changes are minimal, but I think result in a more streamlined look when navigating back and forth between the two.  I hope you agree!

In addition to the “new look” of my blog, I’ve decided to give it a new “feel” as well.  I’ve found that, since I have been shooting so little recently, I’ve ended up posting random photos whenever I get the chance and usually pay little attention as to why I’ve chosen to post a particular image.  The end result, I feel, just doesn’t flow the way I want it to.  To me, my blog feels disorganized and disconnected.

You see, I originally began blogging as a way of telling my story as a photographer.  For me, it was to be a way to keep family, friends, and fans in the loop, to let them know what I had been shooting and share with them new photographs and stories.  My recent, random posts have strayed far from that original goal.  I’ve ending up posting just to have something new up, and it doesn’t really say much about me or what I’m up to.

So, to put it simply, I’m going to strive to get back to my original mission.  I’m going to start posting more regularly about whatever happens to be going on at the time.  Sometimes, hopefully more often than not, I’ll have new photos to share and exciting trips to tell you about.  When I don’t, I’ll write something anyway, maybe about how I’m feeling about photography, or a note about the release of a new photographic accessory.  I love nature and wildlife photography, and even when I’m not shooting, I’m thinking about it or working on it somehow, be it processing images and updating my website, planning trips, making submissions to magazines, or even admiring the work of other photographers.  So I really shouldn’t have any problem finding something current to write about!

This post, the one you are reading right now, will be the start of a new beginning.  It is the first of many that will tell a story, that will reveal more about who I am and why I am a nature photographer.  My future blog posts will allow you to travel with me and see the natural world as I see it.  Consider this an invitation, to join me as I explore the wild and untamed land that nature has to offer.

I have today off from work so this morning I visited my favorite local duck pond again with the goal of photographing Mallards, Canada Geese, and Ring-billed Gulls, regulars that can be expected there every day this time of year.  When I arrived, all of the Mallards were resting near shore and there were only three Canada Geese at the park.  The gulls swam in the center of the lake, out of distance of my lens, at least as far as any decent photograph was concerned.  The Mallards seemed like my best bet so I set up on the asphalt near the culvert that drains into the pond, as it was the closest area where I could get a clear shot of the Mallards with the sun to my back. 

From the start, it appeared as if I’d be lucky to get worthwhile shots, as the morning’s conditions were less than ideal for waterfowl photography.  A fairly regular autumn wind tore across the water, creating ripples of uneven color.  From my perch atop the culvert, I was forced to shoot at a higher angle than I wanted, which made the ripples even more obvious.  To make matters worse, the batteries in my flash, which I had mounted atop my camera to balance out any uneven lighting and add dramatic bold colors to the water, were quickly dying, and the two sets of backups in my bag were dead as well.

Regardless, I stayed, prone on the asphalt, photographing the Mallards when they came into range.  I became more careful with each shot I took, waiting for the angle of the head of the bird to catch the light just right, and keeping an eye on the background, refusing to press the shutter unless the area around the bird was clean, fairly calm, and clear of debris.  I aimed for the perfect shot, straight from the camera, with as minimal cropping, cloning, and adjusting as possible, and focused on my nemesis, the male Mallards in their brilliant green bonnets.

Despite the fact that the ponds in my area have tame Mallards year round, I have had yet to get a nice photograph of a male in full breeding plumage.  Somehow, I have always ended up with better images of the females, probably due to their duller color, which is a bit easier to expose for and allows the details of the bird to show up well even in harsher light.  This morning, I managed to get at least a couple decent shots of the males in full color, despite the conditions.