Daylight Saving Time begins this weekend for most people. It's a sign spring is near, so I figure I have only a few days left to share images from this past winter. I met this moose in early January in the northeastern portion of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. His pose and the snow-covered background make this one of my favorite images from that trip.
The bird population in North America has plunged by nearly a third over the past 50 years. That’s a loss of nearly 3 billion birds. And that’s even with regulations designed to protect vulnerable birds.
The losses could soon grow even worse. The Trump Administration now wants to essentially eliminate one of those protections: The Migratory Bird Treaty Act. You have only until March 19 to speak up to try to save it.
It seems crazy to spend the winter living on a mountaintop, but the wildlife of Yellowstone National Park do that every year. And they somehow manage to thrive. Life finds a way.
While I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve visited Yellowstone, I recently got a chance to make my first winter visit. I got the full experience. Nearly a foot of snow one night. Temperatures as cold as 9 below — Fahrenheit, not Celsius. And I developed a new respect for the animals that I’d photographed so many times before in less challenging weather conditions.
For more than a decade now, I’ve closed out each year by sharing a few of my favorite images from it. It’s part celebration. Ansel Adams once said that producing "twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop." But it’s also a great creative exercise. A careful review of your year’s work can help you see if you’re stuck in a rut or if you’ve found a direction that’s worth exploring further.
Comparing this year’s images with those that started the decade you can see that my favorite work is still a mix of landscape and wildlife, with a few detail pictures that try to express the essence of the subject. If there’s been one big change it is that the images in that latter category have grown more graphic and abstract.
At the rate things have been going, we’ll likely end this year with 36 million fewer trees. That’s how many trees vanish from urban areas in the U.S. annually.
And while it may seem like we’ve made great strides in conservation, this is one area where we don’t seem to be making much progress. The U.S. Forest Service study found that nearly half the states had significant declines in urban tree cover during the survey period. Just three states ended with more trees.
“Kevin, you have two minutes… starting now!”
The guide’s words echoed throughout the narrow sandstone canyon. I’m sure everyone — at least 50 people — heard. Those words were a notice to other guides to keep their tour groups back and out of the scene I was photographing. They also put me on notice that I had to work fast.
Antelope Canyon had certainly changed since the last time I photographed it more than 17 years ago.
White deer are almost mythical beings. Almost every culture has a legend about them.
One Native American legend states that when two white deer come together, all the indigenous people will unite. In Japan, another story goes, 800 years ago an entire herd of white deer appeared to celebrate the opening of a temple. European stories either talk about the misfortune suffered by hunters who killed one or the fruitless attempts to take one by people like King Arthur.
After having the chance to spend time with a deer that was mostly white, I understand how they have achieved that status.
