The other side of water lilies

It's May in the Seattle arboretum. Woodpeckers and flickers are finishing their nests in brittle trees. Mallard ducks are taking their newly hatched ducklings for their first swims. And water lilies are beginning to turn the open water into a maze of lanes.

A tripod with sea legs

People often ask me what they can do to improve their images. Often, I reply, "Get a tripod."

I'm a firm believer in tripods, so to speak. They allow you to capture sharp images that could be impossible to capture with shaky hands. They also slow you down. In the time it takes to set up your equipment, you can also think about whether your first idea for a composition is really the best it can be. Nearly all of my images were captured from a tripod.

This one wasn't. And it wouldn't be anywhere near as good if it had been.

The story behind "Great Blue Heron Fishing, Seattle Arboretum"

The vast majority of my images are taken with the camera mounted firmly on a tripod. For the image of a great blue heron catching a fish for dinner, however, I used a much different type of tripod: the side wall of an inflatable kayak that was beached on lily pads.