For the first time in nearly a week, the air quality at my home north of Seattle is merely unhealthy. Smoke from wildfires up and down the west coast has been piling up in the area for well over a week now. At its worst, the layer of smoke was 3,000 feet thick.
I have found it hard to get good action photos of marmots. Most of the time, they aren’t very active.
The hoary marmots I’ve seen in the Cascade mountain range spend most of the year sleeping. They hibernate for 8 to 9 months each year. They are awake only in summer when they scramble to eat enough to sleep through the next three seasons. Even then, however, I often see them stretched out over large rocks, napping in the sunshine.
This post is part of the 5 Minutes in Nature project — quick activities that are designed to help you relax and more deeply appreciate nature, five minutes at a time.
What color is grass? What color are leaves in the summer? What color is a cactus? They’re all green, right? But our snap response causes us to miss some of the nuance that makes nature interesting.
Normally when a photography project takes up a month of my time, I’ve spent many more months planning it. But my July photo project came as a complete surprise.
Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE) put on a spectacular display for most of the month — the brightest comet to be visible in the Northern Hemisphere in more than 13 years. Given its magnificence, you might think there would have been plenty of advance notice. Even though I track comets, I had heard of it only the day before I headed out to photograph it for the first time.
While it can be incredibly exciting to photograph in a new place or to spend time with an animal you’ve never photographed before, I also enjoy revisiting old subjects. It’s allowed me to make some of my more creative images. It’s that familiarity that allowed me to make this portrait of a barred owl.
For a few weeks a year, hundreds of bald eagles congregate along a short stretch of Hood Canal near the town of Seabeck, Washington. Bald eagles are opportunistic. While they are skilled hunters, they don't work any harder than they have to for their meals. Between a fish migration and wide tidal swings, the feeding is easy there in May and June.
While there’s nothing quite like appreciating a giant print on a museum wall, photography books can have their own charm. A high-quality book can help you get closer to the image than you ever could to a framed print. And advances in digital printing have made it possible for any photographer to their own books — even just a single copy.
I recently printed a single copy of a portfolio. I’m working on a photography exhibit and I need to talk to exhibitors, art patrons and other supporters about the concept. A short book is a great visual aid. I ended up using Saal Digital to produce the bound portfolio and wanted to share my experience.
