Announcing my next photography project

Typically when I share a project with you, it’s nearing completion. Or at least I’m sure it will be completed. This time, I’m bringing you into a project early, although in some ways, this isn’t exactly the early stages.

I’ve been working on Legends of the Land for going on 10 years now. It was to have been my very first photography book. Today, I’m not even sure it will be my fifth.

It’s not that I’m not fond of this project. In fact, I find it even more interesting and inspiring than I did 10 years ago. The issue is that it has required far more time and resources than any other project I’ve ever attempted. Keep in mind I spent three years watching a bald eagle nest.

The idea is this:

Hands on with the Canon 100-400 IS Mark II

^{Captured with a Canon 1D Mark IV, Canon EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L Mark II, and a Canon Extender EF 1.4X Mark III}

I spend relatively little time on this blog talking about equipment — I’m drawn more to the art than the mechanics — but there’s no denying that equipment plays a critical role. The wrong equipment can limit your creative vision. Bad equipment can cause you to miss the shot entirely.

With that in mind, I thought I would share some of my thoughts about the new Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM lens, which I’ve been using for about two months now. You won’t find test charts and studio comparison scenes here. There are plenty of those already that are produced under very controlled conditions. This is a Canon 100-400 Mark II review in the context of how it has performed for me as a professional nature photographer in real-world situations, which includes handling and other features that make a difference in my work.

That's not art, or is it?

There’s been a lot of talk lately in nature photography circles about what constitutes art. This discussion comes up every so often, but this latest round was spawned by what seems to be an absolutely amazing accomplishment from one of our own — not that many of his fellow nature photographers want to claim him.

Best images of 2014

As another year draws to a close, it's time to look back on my favorite images of the past 12 months. It's an exercise I've been doing in some form or another for virtually my entire time as a nature photographer. When I'm down, looking back can be inspiring. It can also help me see if I'm in a rut and challenge me to go in a more creative direction next year.

This year, it's an especially interesting exercise, given that I spent much of the year looking back over my entire career. My new book, Living Wilderness, is a fine-art portfolio of all my work so far. To produce it, I had to comb through nearly 15 years of work to select fewer than 150 standout images that could still work together.

I also traveled less than I usually do. But that just made me work harder close to home. In fact, two of my favorite images came from the yard around my house.

So here they are, my 10 favorite images and why (you can click or tap on any image to enlarge it):

Brainstorming on ice

People say one key difference between the amateurs and the professional photographers is that the professionals take a lot more pictures. That may be true, but there's another difference. The extra images are typically part of a creative exercise; they aren't random shots.

Ansel Adams once remarked that every now and then he arrived on a scene "just when God's ready for someone to click the shutter." I've had my share of images like that, but more often, I have to work at it.

For me, the process works a bit like this: Something strikes my eye, and I keep refining the composition until the image consists only of the essence of what drew me.

The most colorful show on Earth

As the leaves along the Cedar River in Washington state turn from green to yellow, gold, orange, and red, people walking along the river's banks may not notice there's an equally colorful display just under the water's surface. As the leaves change color, so, too, do the sockeye salmon returning to the river after spending the past couple years at sea.

Wow! Is that Niagara Falls?

As I was packing up my camera after photographing from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, two men came up and asked if they could see what I was shooting. I said, "yes," and pressed the play button on my camera to display the last image I took that morning.

Without asking, one of the men rotated the jog dial on the back of my camera to see the other images I captured that morning. But he rotated it clockwise, and instead of seeing an earlier image, the camera displayed the first image on the memory card — one I took four days earlier.

"Wow!" he exclaimed. "Is that Niagara Falls?"