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I think I have discovered who has been stealing all the bird feed from my shed. This fat little guy was too cute to not photograph tonight in my backyard.

With the spring thaw in progress, a white deer stands out in a West Michigan forest on an April morning. Brad and I have spent hours hunting for albino and piebald white deer in a secret location we cannot divulge for the sake of the rare animals. Brad spotted this all-white piebald whitetail. The rare deer lacks the pink nose and eyes of a full albino but the dark eyes and nose made it look to me more like a polar bear. Photographing a polar bear in the wild remains on my bucket list.

The dog days of spring are here! This grand-looking creature checks me out at a stoplight from the back of its master's pickup truck. I roll down my passenger window and try to capture its beauty. F6.3 at 1/1600, ISO 800, 80-200 mm lens at 155 mm

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I know, but I am thinking God's creations don't get any more beautiful than this snowy owl. It has taken me nearly two hours of not-so-patiently waiting to see this magnificent moment up close and personal with the aid of my largest telephoto lens.

While other seagulls sit tight on a frozen pond near Muskegon, this one does a fly-by, allowing me to nearly fill my viewfinder with its image. I have been patiently awaiting such a moment with my 500 millimeter telephoto lens mounted on my camera. Believing such a good thing will happen helps me wait longer. I am a positive thinker. I know it makes me happier and luckier.

Happy Easter! This bunny was in my yard tonight. I used a rabbit call on my iPhone to help make this image.

A Michigan steelhead leaps high in an attempt to get over a short dam on the Betsie River near Benzonia. The Betsie is among the many Michigan rivers that attract fishermen from across the country.

Earlier today, I was in my backyard helping build a deck off the back of my house. While working, I kept seeing this little bird flying around and hopping from tree to tree. When trying to figure out what to photograph for my photo of the day, I remembered the beautiful bird from earlier in the day. F5.6 at 1/50, ISO 1600, 600 mm lens at 600 mm

Bear On the Move

365 Week

Tonight, I drove to my Grandpa and Grandma Reed's house to photograph some of the birds that frequent their beautiful yard. As I pulled into the driveway I spotted this male cardinal. Luckily for me, he stayed put for about 10 minutes, which allowed me to get in just the right spot to make this photograph. F4.0 at 1/200, ISO 1000, 600 mm lens at 600 mm

Nothing could have excited this Michigander more on a winter’s day photo excursion on M-22 than experiencing this eagle flying by so close that my 500-millimeter telephoto lens could seemingly reach out and touch it. The mature eagle was among several hunting for food on a January morning near Crystal Lake north of Frankfort. Brad and I were en route to photograph the Point Betsie Lighthouse when we spotted several eagles feeding just offshore by a large open-water seam in the ice. We saw one of the eagles fly to shore and roost in some tall pines on a nearby hillside. The lighthouse could wait; there might be an image here as good or better for the book we had started shooting, Todd and Brad Reed’s Michigan: Wednesdays in the Mitten. We would be proved correct. We quickly set up 25 yards on either side of the flight path and waited…and waited. I was rewarded with my all-time favorite eagle-in-flight image when one of the eagles chose to fly right by my hiding spot instead of Brad’s. The image was (and remains especially) meaningful to me because my Army Ranger son Tad served our country for several years as a 101st Airborne Screaming Eagle. This eagle was definitely screaming past. Once I got on target, I was able to squeeze off three shots as I swung the lens on my gimbal tripod head and tracked with the majestic bird. With fast action shots, a photographer can often pre-select the background; but often, time does not allow one to see at the fraction of a second of exposure exactly how the subject fits against the background. Back the next day on my computer at our gallery, this image screamed for attention and selection. The bird fit perfectly against the background, simplifying and making order out of what would have been chaotic one one-thousandth of a second earlier or later. Brad and I like to say, “Little things are big things.” On this shot, a fraction of a second made a big difference

Gull Morning

Rest Stop

Bear Path

Walking out to check our freezer beef cattle, a group of geese came in for a landing. I am so fortunate that my kids can wander our fields and have first-hand encounters with all the wildlife here.

While photographing geese on a small pond near my home, I suddenly hear the familiar jackhammer sound that can be made by only one living thing: a pileated woodpecker. I swing my 500 mm lens around and there he is atop a power pole. Fortunately for the power company, the woodpecker soon moved on to find a better place to peck. F4.5 at 1/1000, ISO 400, 500 mm lens at 500 mm

Panorama