Thank you for visiting my Flickr page! I'm always adding new photos, so be sure to stop by from time to time. Here's some background on me and how I got started in photography:

My parents were both birders and nature enthusiasts, so I was immersed in the natural world from a very young age. This exposure kindled a passion for nature in me that has been lifelong. I consider myself very fortunate because I realize many people grow up in urban settings and either never develop such a passion, or do so much later in life. I first picked up a point-and-shoot film camera, as a kid, some time in the mid nineties. This enabled me to photograph the beautiful animals and scenery I encountered, both close to home and on family road trips. Around the year 2000, I graduated to my first 35mm film SLR camera and collected a variety of lenses over time. Also around this time, I voraciously read every book on nature photography I could get my hands on—by authors such as John Shaw, Arthur Morris, Moose Peterson, Art Wolfe, Frans Lanting, and others. I feel lucky to have started my photographic journey in film, as it really forces you to learn how to get images right in-camera, and having a finite number of captures per roll really makes you think about what you're doing before you release the shutter. However, when I switched to my first digital SLR in 2004, it was a liberating experience. I was then able to take as many images as I wanted to, and could review them immediately. This kind of instant feedback really accelerates the learning curve. Now, I work with my wife, Kaysea in our online retail business, which we operate from our home in rural North-central Florida. Our schedule is very flexible, so we can be out in nature every morning before sunrise and for a couple hours thereafter. This affords me many opportunities to photograph local birds. We also try to take a few trips per year to experience different ecosystems, both within the United States and abroad. Bird photography is my absolute favorite genre, and my favorite images are those that not only beautifully showcase the bird, but give a sense of place. I try to tastefully include elements of a bird's environment whenever I can. I also try to give a sense of the weather or climatic conditions. This can be done by deliberately going out in the cold, rain, or snow and looking for ways to include those things in a still image. For example, I may slow my shutter to capture the movement of windblown snowflakes or raindrops, or I may look for backlit subject with a dark background to show a birds breath condensing into fog on a cold morning. To me, these are the types of things that make photography more interesting, and a fun challenge too.