SOLO SHOW POSTER / Nelvana

CHOMP

LITTLE DARLIN'

FROSTED MEADOW

Sometimes I learn the hard way.

I was positioned on a hillside, shooting elk in this meadow, when I decided have a quick look around the bend of the hill. Well, one bend led to another until I found myself about 50 meters away from where I’d left my camera set up – when I spotted what I thought might be a wolf moving through the tall grass.

I raced back, berating myself along the way, and sure enough by the time I returned, what would have been a full frame shot had become much wider and getting more so by the second. It turned out to be a coyote. He was pouncing in and out of view, as he worked his way quickly across the clearing. When he moved onto this little rise, about a hundred meters away, I got my first clear shot at him. A few clicks later he disappeared into the tree line.

The distance, morning lighting, and the thick layer of frost gave a painterly quality to the image and I was very pleased with the results. I was pleased as well to have landed the shot at all and, at the same time, learned a valuable lesson;

Always take the camera.

TIPPING POINT

IN THE CURL

WET & WILD

Wet & Wild

So… I’m standing ankle deep in the mud along the edge of this marsh huddling under my little homemade camera cover. All afternoon it’s been a steady, sleety, in and out of snowy, cold rain. My face has been jammed up against the viewfinder for over an hour, waiting for this handsome young bull to shake the freezing rain off his drenched coat … again.

He did it not five minutes after I started shooting and I caught the whole thing. It was perfect: heads up, facing me directly, lots of spray, focused, and a good exposure. A beautiful sight; like a dog shaking, only in slow motion because of moose mass. Knew I had a great shot but couldn’t leave with just one. He was still there and if the temp kept dropping I could get some big ol’ fat snowflakes that would spice up the shot.

A half later we’re both still there and I’ve got him doing it four times. It’s been one of those – okay, okay, next one is the last one for sure and then I’m done - scenarios. But it’s not getting any snowier, my back is getting stiff, the bottom half of me is getting soaked, I’m getting cold, and, I know I’ve already got the perfect shot.

I leave. Figure I’ll come back the next week if I hear he’s still around.

Turns out he was. But… he’d dropped one of his antlers.

Once again, timing proves to be everything.

SAMBRO ISLAND LIGHTHOUSE

WHAT LIES BENEATH

I went to Newfoundland for the whales, the hope of capturing a big tail shot and the chance to see icebergs. My research showed that mid July was virtually a lock for whales but the icebergs were likely to be gone – even though it was a record year for bergs (thank you global warming).

So I was excited to hear, when I arrived at my first location, that one of only two remaining icebergs around Newfoundland was stuck in a bay nearby. I learned that the whale/iceberg combo is the grand prize photograph for some and the guide services pride themselves on delivering the opportunity for such a shot.

I went out twice a day in the zodiac – on the morning and evening runs – and every time we’d hunt for whales and visit the iceberg. If we sighted whales nearby, we’d maneuver to try and line up a combo shot. Quite a feat on their part really, if you consider the logistics of finding and predicting whale movement in the ocean, lining the whale up with the only iceberg around, and timing it capture it diving.

For my part I had the challenge of getting the whale in focus and keeping it and the iceberg in frame from a small boat on rolling seas while keeping my camera dry.

This particular day the thick fog that engulfed the ice created a magical view of what looked like an ice castle in the clouds. We slowly circled around the base and gawked at the size and beauty and craned to take pictures of the steep sides towering above us – always ready to blast out of there if it began to crack or shift. Then we ventured back to open waters and farther down the coast.

On the return leg of our tour, we picked up a humpback headed in the direction of our iceberg and the maneuvering fun began. There were some opportunities to include both in frame but nothing worthwhile as the ice was just a hunk of white off in the distance. Then he did a deep dive and we lost him.

“Blow at one o’clock!.” He’d surfaced - much farther ahead and close to the berg - but too far for a shot. We raced to catch up and as we approached we could see he was going to dive again. I steadied myself as the boat swung and rolled into position and fired away as soon as I thought I had locked on to him.

I got five shots off in a second just as he went under. Three were just waves and ice. One caught a tail half submerged. And this one - WHAT LIES BENEATH.

DRENCHED

Bears in trees were everywhere.

The whitebark tree pine cone seeds are a big part of the bear's diet. At the higher elevations in Yellowstone Park, Wyoming, there is a run of whitebarks along one of the mountain passes. Unlike other pines, these cones don't drop off; the bears must either rob the secreted caches of birds and squirrels, or do for themselves. The first week in October they were out in full force doing for themselves.

The bears appeared to climb effortlessly and seemed at ease no matter how precarious the perch. If a cone was out of reach they’d either bend the limb as they wished or snapped the limb right off and plucked the cone like a grape. Some would daintily pick out the seeds with their claws and others would just chow down on the cones.

This day it was raining steadily so I had to shoot from under a camera covering. I’m not crazy about shooting bears while using it because I can’t tell what’s going on around me. Plus, it was overcast and the bear was buried in the dark of the tree cover. But just when I was ready to pack it in he popped up into this open area of the tree top. He casually bowed a few limbs to get his treat, then looked my way to give me the shot and let me call it a day.

Quite a sight.

Flapanatomy

“There are no new ideas – only new ways of making them felt.” Audre Lorde

A male trumpeter swan and his mate were migrating north in late winter and chose to wait out a snowstorm on our pond. It was the first time we’d ever had swans.

I spent the entire day shooting and got some keeper images including this sequence of the male fanning his wings. At first, I was trying to decide which one to frame and then it dawned on me that I had a beautiful motion study. It reminded me of Muybridge’s studies from the late 1800s which I had often referenced in my work as an animator. But these swan shots were also stand alone, great images.

At first I arranged them side by side and had as many as six frames. Then the light bulb went off and I melded them into one.

Ever since then I’ve kept an eye out for “Muybridge moments.”

MIGRATION

WET PAINT

WHITEOUT

SWAMP THANG

CATCHLIGHT

It was a shot that almost didn’t happen.

There was a group of us that had spent the sunset hours waiting and watching at a likely spot for moose to show. It was peak fall colour time and Algonquin’s beloved favourite beasts were on the move throughout the park. This particular location was off the beaten path, picturesque, and generally a good bet.

Sure enough, a family appeared a little up the road at sunset and grazed leisurely along the edge. We all raced into position and shuttered away until they disappeared into the woods heading west. It was getting dark and with no sign of them breaking out into the open again, everyone left.

I was in no hurry to call it a day so I stuck around to enjoy the quiet.

Then way off in the distance I spotted the telltale dark shapes moving slowly across the clearing. It was uneven ground so they dipped in and out of sight behind the tall meadow grass but I could tell it was the same cow, calf, and bull from earlier.

I added the extender to my flash setup then steadied my rig as best as possible. Shooting a moving target in low light at 75 yards was a hail-mary shot at best. And the chance of it ending up being a “keeper” was a long shot – literally.

But I lucked out: The distance and the lighting that made it such a challenge were also the elements that made it a success.

ABOVE THE CAULDRON

It suddenly dawned on me after a half hour of shooting, that the beautiful mist enveloping the birds on the pond had not been there before they arrived. It was so cold and there were so many thousands of warm-bodied, heavy breathing snow geese and sandhill cranes, they were generating their own fog.

This was what I called the second staging pond; after the geese left the two larger ponds in the middle of the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge, they would all congregate on this, outlying, relatively smaller pond and leave just after sunrise for the feeding fields. When they left they would blast off en masse, sounding like the roar of a jet, and creating a disturbance in the air that you could feel as they passed directly over.

WET & WILD

FAMILY AFFAIR

SPRING LAUNCH

Red winged blackbird taking off from an exploded cattail in the spring.

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MR. RIPPLES

It’s hard to take a picture of a duckling that doesn’t have some degree of cuteness.

Every spring we’ve been fortunate to have a family of mallards on our backyard pond. And every year I spend as much time as possible during their first couple weeks photographing them. That’s when the ducklings are at their absolute cutest.

They can be a little challenging to shoot because mom is hyper-protective at this stage: it’s easy to spook her right off the pond for several hours – simply by walking in the yard. So I try to get out early and into the hunting blind before they arrive, wear camo on any exposed flesh, and always move in slow motion.

So, 5 years x 2 weeks x 3 hours per day x 500 pics per day = an embarrassing amount of duck photos.

Only a handful however, approaches the cute-factor-level of Mr. Ripples.

GAZE

Algonquin fox

ZAZU

THE HANGING GARDENS OF BALTIMORE

head over heels

chickadee in winter storm

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SPRING GREENS

FEEDING FRENZY

WINTER CARDINAL HUES

It was the Christmas holiday and I set out that morning trying to get the definitive photograph of a chickadee. There were at least a dozen of them around the feeder when a pair of cardinals showed up. The male was the more cautious and kept his distance but this gal came right in to feed despite my presence. She shielded herself from me by staying deep inside the lilac making it difficult for me to pull focus through the branches, but a few times I was able to snake my way through and grab some shots.

Then she hopped up to this perch in the (somewhat) open, tilted her head at me, paused just a beat in a perfect pose, and flew off, but not before I rattled off a few frames. There wasn’t much light but the muted shades of the winter branches were the perfect match for her pale shades of brown and red.

Voila! The chickadee would have to be for another day. That day I had my cardinal.

FLIGHT

FIRST FOX

It was the Ides of March. Well, nearly anyway. It was the 11th and it was a beautifully warm sunny Saturday. Flocks of geese had been honking all week long on our pond, happy to find a great place to rest and refuel on their migration north.

We’d also been seeing teens of turkeys the last couple weeks, parading around the area and even coming up to the feeder on the deck.

Spring was definitely in the air and I decided to take a ride and see if the blackbirds had returned to my favorite swamp. Indeed they had, though still small in numbers and I didn’t see a shot. But on the trip back home I saw a fox crossing on the road up ahead and to my delight he parked himself on the high bank on the west side to catch the last light. I slowed to a stop, popped myself up through the sunroof and started firing off shots as fast as I could. I was in an extremely awkward shooting position and could barely see what I had in the viewfinder. I just tried to get the eyes centered to focus on and held down the trigger. A couple dozen shots later another truck roared on by and scarred him off. Just as he left he looked back at me. Click.

My first fox.

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SLIP SLIDING

INTO THE MYSTIC
It looked like a scene out of prehistoric times - huge, horned beasts ambling across a desolate landscape. As they grunted along, their clouds of breath mixed with the surrounding geyser plumes. The smell of sulfur from thermal springs filled the cold morning air. It was a small herd, moving steadily east. I followed them until the last silhouette disappeared into the mist.

Then they were gone and I realized I was standing alone in the middle of a cloud. I couldn’t see them but I could hear their grunting. I thought it best to leave and worked my way back west toward open sky and present day.

GREAT GREY

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CARDINALS RULE

FOX RUN

DESERT BLAZE

Red winged blackbirds flocking to feed in the grain fields of Bosque del Apache, New Mexico

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RED

CAMO