I'm crazy.

Well as if my life is not busy enough I decided to finally take the plunge on something I have been thinking about for quite some time. I am starting a 365 project. What is that you ask? It is a committment to take and post a photo a day for 365 straight days. The idea is it makes you take the camera out of the bag and shoot. It also gives you a chance to get creative and look for everyday beauty to capture.

I have thought about this for quite awhile. My life is insanely busy right now and some days I am not sure how I will manage but I think it will be a good challenge and one that will force me to grow as a photographer.

Stay tuned for the details and my picture of day 1!

Blackbird shouting it out!

Up river this year there are new signs telling people to slow down their boats to help protect the wild rice beds. Well these signs have quickly become part of the environment as this bird is showing. As we approached this redwing blackbird he was trying to call us off and keep our distance. As I shot away with my Canon 1D Mark IV I got some cool pictures of the bird and sign. At first I was just shooting a picture of the sign to show someone but upon further inspection I really like this photo. It shows the bird with his beak fully open yelling at us as if to be reading the sign to us. I hope you like the picture too.

Whitetail Fawn

Whitetail deer are one of my favorite animals in nature and to photograph. As abundant as they seem at times they can be quite elusive when you have a camera in your hands. A couple of days ago I got an opportunity to photograph a fawn laying in some grass in a field while her mother was laying a little ways away. With the power of my 100-400 zoom lens I was able to get some decent pics although it was tricky trying to get the deer and not blowing grass in front of the deer in focus. My favorite one is below.

More Eagles

Went out on the river looking for eagles and herons today. Got some decent pics. Saw about 3 eagles and only got real close to one. Saw a bunch of herons and have to look over all those pictures yet. Here's a quick one of an eagle that I like.

Hot day on the lake.

We were out on the lake today and it was a hot one! To cool off we pulled the kids behind the boat in the tube. It was a great time and a great photo opportunity. As we pulled them I snapped away with the camera on burst mode and got some great action shots. While some of them wiping out were pretty good, my favorite one is below. It is so hard to believe how hard it is to get a photo with two people looking up and smiling with eyes open at the same time.

I'm using the camera more this week and really enjoying posting here again. Stay tuned for more!

Eye of the Eagle

Today we were floating down the river through wild rice beds and doing some fishing and sightseeing. After several hours of this we had seen countless ducks, herons, eagles and more. As the weather started to turn we needed to get back before a storm rolled in.

As I came around a corner I got a glimse of this majestic bird perched on an old duck blind on the side of the channel. I backed off the motor and grabbed my camera gear. While my wife slowly idled the boat and the kids were amazingly quite I snapped away with my Canon Mark IV. I took about 100 total pics of this bald eagle before we floated by him. The pic below is my favorite. If you want to see the full large version of it go to our main page. If you view the larger version you can see the eagle has a band on his leg.

Long Time Away

Well it's been a long time since I've posted to the blog. Honestly after a strong start to the year I just haven't been into photography much since. I'm trying to get back into the swing of things and enjoy the hobby again. It's finally summer here in Wisconsin and with it some great photo opportunities.

Today I spent some time with the camera and tripod taking some pictures of my wife's favorite flowers, peonys. The sun was probably too high in the sky for the pics but I do like the way they turned out. Probably a little too ordinary for a stock gallery but some nice pics nonetheless. Below is one of my favorites of a white peony with an ant in the center.