About me;

I've been into nature, birds, and wildlife, for my whole life. For most of my earlier days, I was a hard-core fisherman. That was such a huge part of me, and it will always be. But for one, I kind of burnt myself out, spending 1400 hours a year on the water. Then also, I had gotten to a point where I had raised the bar so high, I started feeling like I was just spinning my wheels, and was never going to top the accomplishments I had already made, especially with trophy Bass fishing, which had really become most of my focus.

I always had a camera, or 3, with me, to make sure I got photos of my trophy catches. Occasionally I'd take a snapshot of a cool bird, or a nice sunrise or sunset.. About 15 years ago, I got a slightly longer lens (the old Canon 400 F5.6 :) and then I started doing more photography during my fishing trips.

Their was about a 6 yr period of hard core weightlifting / bodybuilding in between my fishing and photography too, but that came to an abrupt end after a back injury.

So, about 5 yrs ago I got my first mirrorless Camera, the Canon R5 and a decently long lens, a Sigma 150-600. At that point, my bird photography kind of exploded, and ever since then, I've been doing photography, pretty much like I have everything else in my life > Full speed ahead, never tapping the brakes :) OCD can be both a blessing, and a curse :)

I'm an outspoken Christian, and why shouldn't I be ? Without the Lord Jesus Christ I wouldn't even be here !

For every bird photo I take, for every thrill, for every laugh, for every day of life, ALL of the glory goes to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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About my photography;

My gallery here is pretty much a mix, of aesthetics, and technically good photos. I consider myself about 75% "bird photographer" and 25% "birder". So, rarity does play some part in what I'm out trying to shoot. And a lifer, even if its a relatively plain little brown or gray dude, is still pretty cool ;)

I'm a super harsh critic of my own work (not so much of others). I have a little personal rating system that includes about 8 or 9 boxes to check, including aesthetics, sharpness, zero noise, nice BG, color, eye contact, etc.

Out of about 400K photos I've taken in the last 4 yrs, I'm not sure if I have ever produced a perfect 10 out of 10 ? Lots of 9.8's, a few 9.9's maybe ? :) Honestly, I'm constantly trying to figure out what even is a perfect 10 out of 10 ? But I keep trying anyway :)