Nature wasn’t always the subject I photographed most, but now it’s pretty much the only thing I photograph. One of the best parts about nature photography is being able to share it with someone I love. By now you’ve probably heard me mention my boyfriend Chris at least a couple of times (more if you’ve followed my website for quite some time and subscribe to my monthly newsletter or if you are a member of Naturescapes), so I thought maybe I should tell you a little more about him.

I met Chris through nature photography (through NSN actually) when I stumbled across his website and emailed him. We talked for a while before meeting up to do some shooting together, and when we did we hit it off immediately. He’s been my sugarplum ever since

Before meeting Chris, I only photographed nature and wildlife occasionally because I wasn’t really aware of all of the shooting possibilities that existed around me. Chris opened up my eyes to them and taught me a whole lot about the process of finding and photographing wildlife as well as processing my images in Photoshop and displaying them on the web. Without him (and other helpful folks on NSN), I doubt I’d be anywhere near as good a photographer as I am now.

Now Chris and I shoot together whenever we can. He lives in Virginia and I live in New Jersey, so between visiting each other and his grandparents in upstate New York, we are able to get around quite a bit and shoot a variety of subjects in different locations throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. We’ve made a trip to Hawaii together, enjoyed camping trips along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, the Adirondacks in New York state, and the Skylands region of New Jersey, and split hotels in Chincoteague and West Virginia as well.

Chris makes nature photography (and my life in general) more fun. It’s great to have a person I can talk to about the new Gitzo 6x tripods or focusing issues of the new Mark III, share images with, and discuss new post processing techniques or changes to my website. We critique each others work, share ideas, and scout locations for each other. By shooting together, we learn to look at things in a new way; it’s amazing how different some of the images we come away with are, even when shooting the same subject under the exact same conditions in the same location. Chris constantly inspires me and motivates me to be a better photographer, and I know I do the same for him. Just look at how much abstract work he has been doing recently!

To learn more about Chris and see some of his work, please visit his website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com and/or check out his blog at www.chriskaylerphotography.com/blog.