My mother-in-law always keeps an amazing garden with roses and other flowers, so I try to spend some time finding a new and unique composition.

2026/07/NZ1_4355
Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/1.4 • 1/2500s • ISO 100
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2026/07/NZ1_4411
Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/2 • 1/1250s • ISO 250
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Each year we try to find some part of Oregon we haven’t visited yet and this year we realized we might be starting to exhaust the list - well, actually I don’t think that is possible in Oregon, but we have certainly checked off a lot of the main natural areas people think about when visiting Oregon. But, we have always wanted to visit the Redwoods in California and this trip seemed like a great time to do it!

We made it a day trip which meant a very early start and a ~4 hour journey to get there. Being accustomed to driving in Chicago, we are used to terrible weather, but we don’t have huge mountain passes and tiny little mountain roads to navigate, so we took our time getting there that morning. Once we made it to Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park we had a little lunch and hit the trail - and amazing doesn’t start to describe what we found!

Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/2.8 • 1/1250s • ISO 640
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/2 • 1/125s • ISO 720
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The little hole in this tree was big enough for people to stand in and the trees themselves just dwarf everything around them. My son decided to count rings on a fallen tree stump and realized just how old these trees really are.

Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/2.5 • 1/160s • ISO 100
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/4 • 1/30s • ISO 720
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The textures and colors throughout the forest were remarkable! One day I would like to come back and just pick apart all the interesting details for compositions, but I would be worried there would never be enough time to do it justice.

Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/4 • 1/125s • ISO 125
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/5.6 • 1/125s • ISO 400
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/2.2 • 1/25s • ISO 280
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/3.5 • 1/125s • ISO 500
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/4 • 1/50s • ISO 100
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/4 • 1/50s • ISO 200
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/5.6 • 1/40s • ISO 1100
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/4 • 1/60s • ISO 560
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/3.5 • 1/80s • ISO 100
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Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/2 • 1/15s • ISO 200
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After hiking several trails we wound up on the gravel banks of a little river - a theme that repeats itself almost every year we visit Oregon. Is there anything that looks more Pacific Northwest than this?

Afternoon on the gravel banks
Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/11 • 1/160s • ISO 100
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On our way home we hit our first In-N-Out Burger as a family - which ironically was in Grants Pass, Oregon.

The following frames were my favorites (other than our family snapshots on my phone!) of the Redwwoods. They each depict to me the feeling of the old-growth ancient forest in a way words just can’t. A tree root growing around another tree, the sharp texture of the bark, and new growth stemming from a dead log as the cycle of life starts again.

Dark Forest Footprints
Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/2.8 • 1/50s • ISO 220
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Moss-covered tree trunk - about 8 feet wide
Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/4 • 1/100s • ISO 200
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Layers of Life
Nikon Z6iii • 35mm • f/4 • 1/50s • ISO 280
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Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/8 • 1/250s • ISO 450
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Their antlers are covered in tiny peach fuzz in the spring and will grow into full racks by the fall. I hope to make it back in late autumn to see if I can capture them in an early snow.

Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/200s • ISO 220
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On a different trip I captured this Caspian tern, which holds the title of the largest tern species in the world. I had hiked back into a marsh area to get to one of the farther away marshes, and spent an hour with some egrets and terns.

My first Caspian Tern
Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/2000s • ISO 160
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And, while the moon can be photographed from anywhere, I’m pretty sure this was taken at Busse Woods - a quick snapshot.

Moon over Busse Woods at dawn
Nikon Z6iii • 400mm • f/5.6 • 1/640s • ISO 560
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Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1000s • ISO 125
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This is our neighbor’s tree with a striking contrast of new growth on the needles.

Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/2000s • ISO 280
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Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1600s • ISO 5600
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Half-bloomed Allium
Nikon Z6iii • 400mm • f/5.6 • 1/160s • ISO 4000
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The buds below were a great example of how I wind up taking plant shots. I had gone out to a local nature park along a river looking for some waterfowl. I found a few geese but the light was flat and colorless. This budding bush caught my eye, but all I had was a 500m lens with a very long minimum focusing distance. I added a 1.4x converter and managed to handhold one of my favorite frames of the year.

Tiny buds shot with a very long lens
Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/1250s • ISO 900
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I had shot several hundred frames of fairly perfect tulips this Spring, but this frame made the cut. It’s imperfect and past its prime, but the silvery texture on its petals spoke to me when I saw it at full screen. As humans, do we see beauty in all phases of life or just the peak?

Withering Tulip
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/5 • 1/1600s • ISO 640
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Watercolors
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/8 • 1/2000s • ISO 500
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My wife have planted this set of flowers along the side fence of our house and I had been watching them bloom for several weeks. I got home from a kayak adventure and the backlight on them was just perfect. So, I jumped out of the car with my camera and took some frames.

Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/5 • 1/640s • ISO 900
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This last set of flower was from a walk around the neighborhood with a macro lens on Easter weekend.

Nikon Z6iii • 105mm • f/8 • 1/125s • ISO 640
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Nikon Z6iii • 105mm • f/4 • 1/200s • ISO 100
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Nikon Z6iii • 105mm • f/4 • 1/200s • ISO 160
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So, while this Spring my plant photos were more coincidental than planned, I still had a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed them too!

It’s always a fun adventure getting on the water for the first time each year. I have to find all the goodies, unpack the kayak, get cross bars on the car, and get ready to go. But, somehow it was a breeze this year and Sunday night I packed it all up for the 4:45 a.m. start in the morning.

I was also a little nervous about bringing my new (to me) 500mm lens out with me for the firs time. One really has to have certain level of confidence in your paddling skills to try that for the first time.

Mist on the water.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/2000s • ISO 720

I got to Busse Woods (in the suburbs of Chicago) right before the sun was rising and the water was covered in a beautiful blue-cast mist. In the Chicago area, the sun will burn off the mist right at sunrise so the reward to getting up so crazy early is to be able to capture this magical moment.

First frame of the day. The mist was a deep blue color before sunrise.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1000s • ISO 1100
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Busse Woods is a large county preserve with a manmade lake that contains several pools and multiple islands. I decided to venture over to the north-east pool first before the sun came up because I had been hoping to find a few blue herons that had been spotted in the area. On my paddle over I spotted several cormorants and some ducks.

A cormorant perched waitng for his friend to join him.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1000s • ISO 720
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A very fast flyway over a glass-smooth lake surface.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/500s • ISO 900

Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1000s • ISO 1100

Needless to say, these images happened way too quickly and I wasn’t really dialed in for the best shot at the best settings. I could tell I had lost a lot of practice from last year at picking proper settings, anticipating the action and tracking birds in flight. It is amazing just how rusty you can get at photography from a kayak over the winter. It really is a very weird and specialized skill.

The sun was just starting to crest over the nearby trees so I paddled over to another pool right by the rookery island and found a flight of geese just landing.

A goose is a goose but I love the way they land.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1000s • ISO 280
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Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/2000s • ISO 560
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At this point, I looked over to find a kayak angler about 100 feet away from me on the shoreline and decided it might be a good idea to give him space, so I paddled south toward a set of small islands and a dam. As I came around the far side of the island slowly, I started to paddle as quietly as I could in case there was wildlife on the other side. And, lucky enough, as I turned the corner I saw a trio of swans on the shore, and oddly enough they seemed to be very annoyed with a group of pelicans in the water behind them. I’m sure there was a nest nearby they were protecting.

Swan trying to scare off a pelican.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/5 • 1/2000s • ISO 280
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Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/2000s • ISO 110
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I love the backlight on the pelicans below. American pelicans are one of my favorite birds to photograph and I love just observing them. I had been trying to find pelicans in the Chicago area for several years after I heard they migrate through the area every year. Earlier this spring I had finally found them at the Des Plaines confluence where the Des Plaines river meets the Kankakee river near Channahon, Illinois. So, it was an unexpected surprise to find them here as well as it should be way past their migration through this area. Maybe these decided just to stay! Hopefully we will have a squadron of pelicans here all summer!

Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4.5 • 1/2000s • ISO 320
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I circled around the group giving them ample space so I could get the sun behind me. The sun had already lost its early golden hour hue but was still low in the sky and lit these big birds up beautifully. What more could I ask for as I just sat with them for about 30 minutes as they paddled all around me.

Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/2000s • ISO 160
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Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/2000s • ISO 180
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Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/2000s • ISO 180
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I finally decided it was time to head back to the ramp and call it a day. On the way back I stumbled across an an egret feeding off in the distance. There was another boat fishing along the bank getting closer and closer to the egret and eventually it flushed the egret and it flew right by me.

To me, egrets are one of the hardest birds to photograph in flight, largely because they are fast and very white and usually are flying against a dark backdrop - at least in Illinois. However, everything lined up right this time and I was happy to paddle away with this shot.

This shutter speed is quite slow but I lucked out and got a few good frames as the egret flew past me.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/5 • 1/1600s • ISO 220
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I was almost back at the ramp and this goose flew past. This provides a nice contrast to the egret. As you can see, their colors often match well with the background, they fly quite a bit slower and their feathers have a lot more contrast - so for me, they are so much easier to photograph.

Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/5 • 1/1250s • ISO 400
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And that was it - what a wonderful way to spend the first part of Memorial Day. I’m grateful for the sacrifice of our fallen heroes and for freedoms we share in this country that allow us to enjoy nature and wildlife even if it is in the middle of suburban Chicago.

Happy paddling!

We have a small ornamental tree that creeps closer and closer to biting the dust every year, so I decided to hang the feeder in it. While unfortunately the tree is not doing great for itself, it has made for a very excellent bird perch for songbirds! Perches need few leaves, a clear background and a lot of scaly bark with stuff growing on it!

A common house finch. Probably the most common visitor to our perch this year.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1000s • ISO 11400
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A male cardinal.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4.5 • 1/1600s • ISO 360
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Cardinals are a species of bird that I have had a hard time photographing. They are very fast, flighty and never seem to stick around more than a few seconds. When I was doing some research, I found out that they overwinter here in Chicago and Winter is actually the best time to photograph them. So, let’s see what happens!

Female House Sparrow.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1600s • ISO 11400
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Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1250s • ISO 6400
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Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1250s • ISO 8000
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The classic American Robin.
Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/200s • ISO 140
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As you can see, the bird feeder in the little tree has provided a lot of fun and some education. Believe it or not, I’m not much of a birder - I just love taking pictures of animals. But, I’m learning more about them this year as I focus more on wildlife.

We also have an arborvitae in our front yard and the birds seem to fly between the perch and the evergreen - probably a much safer place to hang out most of the time.

The male House Sparrow.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1000s • ISO 3200
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Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/800s • ISO 7200
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While the bird feeder was a success for attracting different types of birds, the truth is that it most attracted the neighborhood squirrels. They would sneak up on the perch, steal some food and then fight each other and the birds for territory. Maybe in the fall I will fix that. But they were also fun to photograph.

Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/800s • ISO 9000
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I also had a few great opportunities to take pictures of our rabbits. I’m sure we have a little (or big!) family of rabbits leaving around our house. This year it seems like they are everywhere and they have lost all fear of predators. They have eaten almost every flower and plant we have planted, killed our blueberry bushes, demolished our peas and won’t bother eating any of actual weeds in our yard.

So, it’s a love-hate relationship at this point, but I really do love watching them hang out and hop around.

Glowing in the golden hour sunlight, this friend-foe hung out with me as I crawled on my belly to get close enough for a frame-filling shot. That's about 20 feet with a 500mm lens.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/5 • 1/1600s • ISO 900
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Possibly my all-time favorite portrait of a bunny.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/1250s • ISO 1250
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Just a frame documenting all the things they should be eating but don't.
Nikon Z6iii • 400mm • f/5.6 • 1/400s • ISO 6400
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And finally, my favorite wildlife of all in our front yard. Juneau’s happy place in Spring is sitting in between our tulips just watching people as they walk by.

Juneau in the midst of our tulip patch.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4.5 • 1/1600s • ISO 400
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It turns out, I didn’t need to travel far to have a great time this Spring admiring the local wildlife.

Once I learned that these magnificent birds flock to the rivers south of Chicago each year, I decided I had to visit. I picked a day in April and unfortunately the weather did not cooperate. I got up early to a very overcast and gloomy sky but decided to go anyway. I had looked at the map and terrain multiple times to make a good guess at where the flock most likely would be, but when I got there all I found were American Coots - very different!

As the exposure shows, this morning proved to be very dull.
Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/500s • ISO 3600

I camped out a little bit with the coots just to watch them and see if anything else would show up at this location. Coots are fun to watch taking off since they tend to run across the water in a way different from most other birds. Since it was so dark I tried to capture a motion blur of them doing this.

Nikon Z6iii • 500mm • f/4 • 1/500s • ISO 2500

After an initial defeat I decided to walk around McKinley Woods and see if the pelicans were anywhere to be found. This perverse is located on a little peninsula on the Des Plaines confluence so you can see a large part of both rivers at this point.

This squirrel was a noisy little guy while he munched on his breakfast.
Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/800s • ISO 12800
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Always a winner, this robin came up to me as I sat on the side of the trail for a moment.
Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/250s • ISO 3200
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The American Goldfinch wasn't nearly as personable and stay very far away. I couple gave me a strange look as they walked by while I was lying on the ground inching toward the bird.
Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/500s • ISO 1600
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So, coots, goldfinches, robins and squirrels, but no pelicans! I sat down at a bench to figure out what to do next since I knew they were likely somewhere around me when another fellow birder came wandering by and asked me if perchance I had seen some cormorants. I actually had and I pointed the direction they flew by. What a weird little interaction at 6:30 in the morning so I asked if perchance she had seen some pelicans. And she said yes! They were at Wilmington Dam. Off I went on a drive 15 minutes down the river!

Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/640s • ISO 220

And there they were, about 40 of them out on an island right below the dam.

This one drifted by me as the the water pushed them down river. Once they got too far from the island they would all fly back and do it over again.
Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/640s • ISO 180
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The nine-foot wingspan of these birds is something you have to see in real life to appreciate.
Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/640s • ISO 220
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Nikon Z6iii • 700mm • f/5.6 • 1/2000s • ISO 450
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And that was my very first adventure with pelicans, but hopefully not my last. Maybe I’ll get another opportunity on a day with some really good light. They come back through in the fall so in the mean time there will be more adventures to come.

Enjoy nature every chance you can.

The first realization was when I was moving my photo catalog from an old PC to a new one we had built last year. As I was copying over the hundreds of thousands of images, I realized that there were so many images that only I had seen. Some were polished, a bunch were just raw and unedited. I have a few airshows that I never even culled through to find the keepers.

There are very few things that free my mind more than photography. I love figuring out how certain techniques work. I am motivated by continually working on how to improve. I love finding new subjects to photograph and the challenge in nature to find the perfect shot. I certainly have many other hobbies and things I love doing, but photography has always been the one that I circle back to time and time again. To me, there are few other things better than this:

Having been around cameras and technology for the better part of three decades, I have learned a few lessons along the way that I want to share in the hope that it can positively impact others. Sharing art, sharing experiences, sharing things I’ve learned the hard way in the hopes that it can help others avoid some of the pitfalls I’ve encountered along the way.

This blog is really about creating the space to share. I am intrigued with the work of Vivian Maier. She was a reclusive nanny and secret artist who quietly took over 150,000 breathtaking photographs of everyday life in Chicago and New York and left most of it in a storage locker. There is no doubt that part of this intrigue is the unusual discovery of her work, but it makes me wonder if she had shared her work, how it would have changed her life and those around her?

This space is not meant to be a pursuit for perfection. Much like Vivian Maier’s work, it is meant to be honestly human and purposefully imperfect. A walk through life as engineer, photographer, dad, husband and keen admirer of creation.

So, let’s see what happens.