I am a winner!

Hello Everyone, I am very proud to announce that my photo of a Least Sandpiper has been selected as the Youth winner in the first ever Audubon Magazine Photography Competition!
I entered the competition never thinking I would get to the finals let alone win. You have most likely seen the photo since I have posted it here more than once. But if you haven't, then you can view it here. I hope that everyone has a very Happy New Year!

White Christmas

Hello Everyone,
I hope everyone had a great Christmas, I certainly did. What made this Christmas a very unique and special one is the fact that for the first time in my life I experienced a White Christmas! A blizzard in fact. I have lived in North Texas my whole life ( just 17 years, but still this was big ) and never before had I seen snow, much less inches of the stuff on this Holiday. I have seen it on Valentines Day and other times in between December and April but never on Christmas. It started on Christmas Eve and snowed non stop all day. There are still patches and a few small drifts left over which is also amazing since snow around here never lasts more than 24 hours and it has been 4 days since it began! There is talk of more snow on Tuesday, but I know it will be nothing like the previous event. Anyway, I took this image from the car at the park near my house. I did not really get to spend much time on this shot, but I was really pleased in the way it turned out when I loaded it onto the computer. I converted it to B&W and like the result, but would love to hear your opinions. Hope you like it!

Image Data:
1/100s. | f/11 | ISO 200
17-55mm @ 55mm
Click image for larger size.

White Tail Buck

Here is another image taken at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge last week. This one of a White Tail Deer. We were driving out of the refuge when this big fella started walking across the road about 50 yards in front of us. We slowly approached him as he took refuge in the high grasses along the side of the road. I took several shots from the car and this was probably the best. As we were stopped he decided to cross again to the other side in front of the car and joined a doe waiting in some brush for him. Something was playing tricks on my camera and I was getting some weird readings hince the odd exposure specs. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Image Data: 1/125s. | f/8 | ISO 320
Click image to see larger size.

American Bison

I finally made it out for some shooting today at the Fort Worth Nature Center and Refuge with my mom. The refuge is about 15 minutes from my house. The weather was very chilly and got cloudy when I arrived, so not much was photographed, go figure. There was a lot of activity and most birds were fairly easy to get close to. I cannot wait to get back out there on a sunny day, hopefully Monday. As we were driving out past the Bison range the sun peeked out between some clouds for all of one minute, enough for me to get a few snaps of this Bison. I like the light here with the dark clouds in the background. Only nit for me were the stems of grass in his face, I have got to look for these things when composing the image! I hope you like it anyway.

Data: 1/200s. | f/8 | ISO 200 | Full Frame
Click image for larger size!

American Wigeon

Hello All,
Longtime no post! Sorry. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I still have yet to get out for some shooting this week. The weather here has turned winter'ish, very chilly temps and even an inch of snow on Wednesday! That usually does not happen this early here in north Texas. I need to enjoy while it lasts. The Dark-Eyed Juncos have returned to my backyard, so I hope to get some images of them soon. For now here is a image of some American Wigeon taken at the reservoir back in October. I cloned out some parts of other flying Wigeon that that were poking out from behind these three. I liked the pose's of this trio, especially the one in front with its mouth open. Let me know what you think! Hopefully I will have some new images to share soon.

Image Data: 1/1250s. | f/8 | ISO 250
Click image for larger size!