Animals and Pets

THE JOY OF PHOTOGRAPHY

As many of you may know, I have several passions. My first is writing, decorating and close behind is my love of photography. My house is filled with enlarged photographs of birds, that either came to a tree in my yard or that I happened upon at a lake here in Florida.

It is amazing how our photographs have improved as our cameras have changed. Who would have thought that our phones would make great pictures and be much easier than carrying around a camera. Now, I know the real professionals might wait for hours for a great shot and their equipment is far beyond what most of us can afford.

My neighbor in Florida called and told me that a pair of eagles were in the tree outside his bedroom window. My technique was to take about three steps forward, very slowly, and stop. Make the picture and take three more steps. Usually, with the birds, I would see that they were cautious and would probably soon fly. By taking the series of pictures, I was sure to find a good one.

The Eagle that you see below had been planning to build a nest, but the osprey, also shown below, lived a block over and continually dived at the eagle to scare him away. Obviously, the osprey didn’t think that there was room for both of them in the neighborhood. A day or so after I got my photographs of the eagle, a hurricane tore through our state and the tree that the eagles were in crashed to the ground. Had it fallen another direction, it would have gone through our neighbor’s bedroom.

It also occurred to me that photography can have its dangers. I thought of it after the photo was printed. Take a look at the talons on the osprey that was sitting on a branch just above my heard. They are gigantic! Good thing he didn’t like the fact that I was too close and decided to charge onto my face!

One missed shot that I had was a huge, pileated woodpecker that flew to my upstairs window. Grabbing my camera, I made a great number of shots of him up-close. My, he was beautiful! He flew. I looked at my camera and my photocard was missing. Rats!!! Hats off to the professional photographers who risk weather, bugs and animals to get their perfect shot…for the ones they get and the ones that got away.

Nature is a real joy to photograph or paint. However, in all of nature, we must remember the CREATOR who made it. Our paintings or photographs only reflect His beauty. May God have the glory!

Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Luke 12:27

I thought in this blog, I would like to share a few of my favorites photographs with you. Maybe some o

I would like to share with you today an assorted number of my photographs and art work. I found that ravel is an excellent source for photography, but so is our own backyards. As I design my own covers for the books I write, photography is a great help in coming up with exactly what I want the book to look like.

You can enlarge by clicking on the picture and following the arrows. Enjoy!