Tuliptree Blossom with Guest
Another Day at Work
Apis Workers' Party
Predator
Some of Your Beeswax
Sedum Bumbler
Look of Defiance
Chicory Bee
Bumbling Bees
Garden Cafe
Buzz By Here - To Infinity and Beyond
Pick Your Poison
Blind Side Attack
On a Mission
Honey Bee on Sedum
Covering the Cosmos
Center of the Cosmos
Three's a Crowd
Popular Spot
On A Pedestal
Big Harry Fireworks Display
To Impress the Girl
Different Perspective
Sweet Ride
Perfect Little Piggies B&W
Flipping the Light Fantastic
Festival of Flights
To the Crowd's Delight
Amish Go Round
Wondersome One
The Stars In Her Eyes
Tuesday's Child
Sleeper Hold
Considering the Next Move
Sugar and Spice
Front Porch Portrait
Caged Competitor
Early Adoration
Child In the Ligtht
Stroll Through the Weeds
Attention Grabbing
Eye Contact
On the Line
Eyes of Wonder
Rounding the Curve
Troubadours of Basin Spring Park
Down by the Creek
Sun Day
Catching Some Light
EAA Fireworks
Hear Me Roar
Sony SLT-A77V
The Early Stretch
One of the glories of spring is “new growth” – as flowers bud and leaves sprout in the woodlands. This is a twig bursting forth with new life; awakening from its deep, winter slumber.
A lot of my images are captured on hikes through the woods with my wife. When we hike, you can bet my camera is with me. I often stop in mid-stop and begin focusing on something that would seem painfully plain and ordinary to most people. In these moments, something has caught my eye and sparked my imagination. I see some shape or texture or exquisite light that I want to save – if possible. (It’s not always possible.)
Often the greatest challenge in photography is being able to capture, with a camera, what my eye sees. Sure, you can snap a photo of a scene or object, but the camera has a difficult time of capturing the essence and full spectrum of beauty our eyes can perceive. (With, no doubt, some artistic enhancement provided by the filter of our own soul.)
Let’s be honest. This is an image of a simple, ordinary twig. But there is something about the warm glow of late afternoon light that is revealing the texture of the leaves…something about the early stage and directional flow of the leaves. To me, this simple twig has a seductive quality to it. I’m glad I stopped to capture it.
You can view a larger, more detailed version of this image by clicking on it. When you do, a full-screen version will open in a new browser tab.
All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Invitation To Spring
One of the most inviting indications of spring’s arrival are the cheerful daffodils. They are early bloomers and a sure sign of more spring beauty to come.
Normally I’m eagerly waiting for an opportunity to capture a few of these lovely flowers in our area of northeast Wisconsin. These, however, were captured a couple of weeks before the bloom in our neighborhood.
On a recent trip to southern California we visited the higher elevations around San Bernardino where they still had small patches of snow and were experiencing their own spring arrival. I snapped this pair blooming near Big Bear Lake.
All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Valley of Promise
A panoramic view of a peaceful valley nestled among the rugged San Bernardino Mountains; part of the San Bernardino National Forest in Southern California.
We were visiting family in San Bernardino. It was my first trip to the West Coast. We took a drive up to Big Bear Lake and stopped at various spots along the way to enjoy the view and snap a few frames.
Thankfully, as you can see, we had a cloud-filled sky so the sunlight wasn’t too harsh for this mid-day image. I like the clouds touching the top of the mountain. From this vantage point, I think you can see a little sliver of the ocean in the distance.
To capture this wide angle vista, I took 11 separate photos (in portrait orientation) and then merged them into one very large image (11,843 x 4916 pixels, 76.7 MB).
To get a real sense of the beauty and see the detail, you have to see it in the much larger size – available by clicking on the photo.
All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Bird of Paradise
Flowers are one of my favorite photography subjects. They provide an infinite variety of appealing color and form. This exotic beauty was photographed at a botanical garden. This is the bloom of the Bird-of-Paradise plant; also known as the crane flower.
Bird-of-paradise (Strelitzia reginae) is a native of South Africa and is closely related to the banana plant. The name is derived from the unique flower it bears. Some say it resembles a brightly colored bird in flight. I think it more resembles the bird’s head with a colorful plumage crest. Either way, it is a striking and unusual flower.
You can get a better look with a larger, more detailed view of this flower by clicking on the photo.
All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Be Still My Soul
I find this to be a very therapeutic scene. It is the Kewaunee, Wisconsin lighthouse with the waves of Lake Michigan rolling and reflecting the sunrise in the foreground. To add and extra measure of calming grace, six Canada geese fly past the lighthouse. (If you look close, you’ll even see a sea gull above the geese, on the right side.)
This is one of my favorite images. I captured this at the end of last February – the same morning I captured, Morning Rolls In, posted March 1st. Look back and compare the two. This one was after the sun was up and into the clouds. Morning Rolls In was shot earlier, before the sun breached the horizon.
I like both, but I like this one more. The sun’s reflection among the waves and the near perfect timing of the geese flying by make this an easy favorite.
Do yourself a favor and view this image in it’s largest available format. It’s easy, just click on the photo and a full-screen version will open in a new browser tab.
All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Glorious Expanse
My ideal photographic mornings are ones where the sun and clouds come together in concert to create a symphony of comforting color and soothing, natural beauty. This is one such morning, captured from the Lake Michigan shore at Kewaunee Wisconsin. The colors reflecting off the lake enhance the effect.
This is a panoramic image created by “stitching” together three separate shots. It’s a technique photographers use to get a wider view than the camera can capture in a single frame. Of course, when you combine high-resolution images, the final image ends up being a much larger file. That large file size also makes large prints possible. For example, this image is available on my sales page to be printed up to 9-feet wide. Wouldn’t this look great filling a wall?
I don’t post a lot of panorama images because wide images don’t display as well on the website – they have to be reduced, and appear quite small, in order to fit the page width of my website. However, if you click on the photo, a larger version stretching the full width of your screen will appear.
Clump of Springtime
Some of the first bloomers in early spring, the Hepatica is a delightful wildflower find. This clump was photographed along a Wisconsin woodland path in April.
The Hepatica is in the buttercup family. It’s also known by some other odd names (at least, to me) such as liverleaf, liverwort and squirrel cups. I’ve read the “liver” names have to do with the shape of the leaves, which some believe resemble a human liver. I’ve also read some Cherokee and Chippewa tribes used Hepatica as a treatment for liver disorders and it’s still harvested for its medicinal values today.
You can view all the detail in this collection of Hepatica full-screen by simply clicking on the photo.
Flitting Among the Asters
On a warm summer day, this monarch butterfly was enjoying the weather and the wildflowers.
This was in a vacant field in the middle of an urban area. The warm sun and abundance of wildflowers were attracting a number of butterflies. Of course, they attracted me and my camera.
My goal was to capture the butterflies in flight. Not difficult to do with the number of butterflies in the area. The difficult part was to capture them close up and in focus. They fly erratically, up and down and every direction. Thankfully, with today’s modern digital cameras, you can snap hundreds of photos (if needed) without the expense of photo development to find the right shot. On this particular shoot, I believe I snapped about 140 shots and came away with several keepers. Still, while this particular butterfly is in focus, when you look closely, the image suffers from a bit of motion blur. (Did I mention they fly erratically?)
You can view a full-screen version of this image simply by clicking on the photo.
All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Bluebird Family Outing
These are Eastern Bluebirds perched on a stump in our backyard. We have bluebird nest boxes at several locations around our rural home. Each spring we watch, expectantly, for them to return, build their nests and raise their young.
The three birds with the speckled plumage are the young ones. They were attracted to the stump by a treat of mealworms we offered on a regular basis. We love watching them and their progress from hatchlings to fledglings…until they head south for the winter.
Feeding them mealworms on a regular basis creates a location where I can set up my camera and capture some good images. This photo was taken with my camera on a tripod ten to 15 feet away from the stump. I was actually in my house, watching out the window, snapping the photos with a wireless remote.
You can enjoy more of the detail in this image by viewing the full-screen version. Simply click on the photo.
All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.
Morning Rolls In
The waves were rolling in, just before the sun was to rise over Lake Michigan. I captured this view of the lighthouse and pier from the beach at Kewaunee, Wisconsin.
Most mornings the lake is calm, but recent windy conditions kicked up a bit of surf. This was taken last Sunday morning.
You can view a full-screen version of this image by clicking on the photo.
All of the photos I post are available for purchase. If you’d like to buy one, click on the blue “Buy this Online” bar below for a variety of print and frame options or contact me for digital purchase and licensing options.