Outside Alaska, the northern lights are a rare treat in the United States, but the aurora captured in this image was visible across most of the country. I’m honored the dazzling display so many of us witnessed that night in our “spacious skies” will be featured on a new pane of U.S. Forever postage stamps to illustrate the lyrics of America the Beautiful.
My love for nature preceded my love for photography. One of the places that connected the dots for me was the Alpine Lakes Wilderness of Washington state.
The Alpine Lakes Wilderness protects more than 400,000 acres of craggy peaks, mountain lakes and forests in Washington’s Central Cascades — an area that stretches between two busy mountain passes. Its proximity to civilization was what initially brought me there.
An hour after leaving Seattle you can be in a wilderness where even bicycles aren’t allowed. It was convenient. It would have taken me at least three times longer to reach Mount Rainier National Park. But after my very first hike in the Alpine Lakes, its beauty became its primary draw.
There is no question that bald eagles are skilled hunters. They can spot a fish from a mile away and fly to it in under a minute.
But they’re also masters of something scientists call kleptoparasitism: the art of stealing food from others. In my book The Year of the Eagle, I documented bald eagles stealing food from crows, great blue herons and even other eagles.
A couple of days ago, however, I captured an especially dramatic act of thievery. I saw a bald eagle steal a rabbit from a young red fox. Even more impressive: at times, this battle played out more than 20 feet in the air.
As I wrote last month, wind can seem like an impossible concept to capture in a still image. But just a few days after posting about my experience in the wind in Pinnacles National Park, I found yet another opportunity close to home.
My latest wind image came on a day when I had set out to photograph nesting kingfishers. The birds weren’t cooperative, but because I had just written about the wind, the image at the top of this post practically jumped out at me.
For me, the image illustrates more than the wind. It also shows how assigning yourself ongoing projects can help you to break through creative logjams.
You often hear of artists talking about their careers in terms of personal growth. Over the nearly 20 years I’ve been photographing nature, my vision has certainly grown.
In the beginning, I was satisfied with images that made nature look as pretty as possible. Today, I try to make images that are pretty but also communicate how I felt when I pressed the shutter button. And in Pinnacles National Park, California, last month, that meant I had to find a way to photograph the wind.
There is just something magical about wild horses. I’ve photographed wildlife for nearly two decades now, blessed with incredible experiences with everything from bald eagles to penguins. But wild horses are truly in a category of their own.
I think it’s because while horses are not rare, wild horses are. There are only a half-dozen places in North America to even see wild horses. I recently got a chance to spend time with the horses in one of them: Assateague Island on the coast of Virginia and Maryland.
There have always been stories about the origin of the land and the life that calls it home. Before there was science, those stories came from imagination and spirituality. In this series, I have created contemporary nature photography to illustrate them. Read more about my Legends of the Land series.
Iceland is a great place to be a troll. There are trolls all over the country, but you never see them — at least not in the flesh. Trolls must forever remain in the dark. Sunlight turns their skin to stone.
So they spend their days in mountain caves or under sea arches, venturing out only in the black of night. And in the rugged landscape of Iceland, there are plenty of places for trolls to hide from the sun.
