Gray Treefrog, from Curious Critters

One of the early images created in my Curious Critters series, this beautiful amphibian quickly became symbolic of my project. Relaxed, meditative, and humble-looking, the gray treefrog embodies what I’m trying to do with the whole white-backgrounded series of images: get people to notice the intriguing and often fragile wildlife around us. And perhaps that will lead to conservation. When I began work on my children’s picture book last fall (2010), it was a natural in our ‘green’ era to place this pensive portrait on the book’s cover. To learn more about this and other images in Curious Critters, visit www.curious-critters.com. All animals portrayed here were handled carefully and not sedated. Some resided at centers dedicated to education, conservation, and rehabilitation. Wild animals were returned safely to their habitats.

Blue Jay, from Curious Critters

Blue Jays are excellent imitators, mimicking the sounds of a variety of birds. One of the most frequent calls they produce is the “Kee-eeeee-arr” screech of the red-tailed hawk. While blue jays are beautiful to look at, they can be quite annoyingly aggressive at bird feeders, driving away other birds. Many of my specimens come from education and rehabilitation facilities. This blue jay resides at the Ohio Bird Sanctuary. To learn more about this and other images in Curious Critters, visit www.curious-critters.com.

Red Flat Bark Beetle, from Curious Critters

Many people who work with timber have seen the larvae of the red flat bark beetle: cream-colored, flat, and about an inch long. If you saw one of these worm-like larvae, you’d never know that in its adult stage it could be so stunning. If you look closely, you’ll see mites crawling on the back of this brilliant insect. In my children’s picture book, I couldn’t pass up the chance for a pun: each curious critter gets a chance to talk, and this one tells readers that the little arachnids on his back are “mite-y” annoying! To see sample pages from Curious Critters, visit www.curious-critters.com.

Southern Flying Squirrel, from Curious Critters

Cute, furry, and infinitely frenetic, Southern flying squirrels are a lot of fun. These loveable Critters glide from tree to tree by jumping off high limbs, spreading the folds of skin between their legs, and gliding downward. They steer with their rudder-like tails. This Southern flying squirrel was a rehab animal at Brukner Nature Center, Troy, Ohio. To learn more about this and other images in Curious Critters, visit www.curious-critters.com.

Goldfish, from Curious Critters

Fish photographed from the side are interesting. When they begin to face the camera, another dimension is added. But what happens when the fish starts talking to you? “O-ooooh! Hello-ooooo! It’s good to see you! I do like visitors.” That’s what I imagined as I wrote the words uttered by this mouth-agape goldfish, who appears 22 inches long, spread over two pages, in my children’s picture book, Curious Critters. You could find this goldfish swimming around the biology lab at Ashland University, where I teach. To learn more about this and other images in Curious Critters, visit www.curious-critters.com.

Cedar Waxwing, from Curious Critters

This is not your textbook cedar waxwing photo. Think “bad feather day!” When I photograph animals in the Curious Critters series, I never know what they will do next, so you have to be ready. In this case, the little guy all of the sudden puffed up his feathers and began to shake. Voila! To learn more about the techniques used in producing Curious Critters, visit www.curious-critters.com.

Bush Katydid, from Curious Critters

No, this is not Photoshopped. She was really bubble-gum pink. I attended a naturalist workshop in western Ohio, and one group came back from the field with this rare color morph. (Besides pink, bush katydids can also be yellow or orange.) In my children’s picture book, Curious Critters, this lady bemoans her unusual color...that is, until she realizes that her unique coloration might have its advantages. At the book’s web site, www.curious-critters.com, I offer an inside perspective on photographing for and writing Curious Critters.

Virginia Opossum, from Curious Critters

Opossums are fascinating animals. Pouches on their bellies. Scale-covered tails from which they can suspend themselves. And they’ve “hung around” since the dinosaurs. Too cool! In my picture book I decided to let this opossum wax poetic, a tribute to the Old Possum, T. S. Eliot. O. Possum opines on the spelling of his name, among other things. To see sample pages from Curious Critters, visit www.curious-critters.com.

Eastern Box Turtle, from Curious Critters

Based on this box turtle’s scute rings, he’s about fifty years old. Holding him in the palm of your hand, it’s hard to imagine what he’s seen in half-a-century. Now imagine this: one turtle on Martha’s Vineyard, MA, is over 150 years-old. It’s age life has been documented from time to time by newspaper reporters, who have used markings on its shell to verify its identity and age. Unfortunately, overcollecting and habitat destruction have placed many eastern box turtle populations on the brink of collapse. To learn more about the techniques used in producing Curious Critters, visit www.curious-critters.com.

Black Swallowtail, from Curious Critters

Always looking to push my photography in new directions, I decided to forego fast shutter speed and try to capture the flight of a butterfly. 1/50 of a second proved just long enough to catch blurring

I partner with a variety of nature and science centers in my photography, including rehabilitation and educational centers like The Ohio Bird Sanctuary, Lexington, Ohio. In working on images for my upcoming children’s picture book, Curious Critters (July 2011), the staff and I decided to place this gorgeous Great Horned Owl outside in the freshly fallen snow. It dove face-first into the snow and came up staring right into my fully-zoomed Sigma 120-300mm lens (mounted on a Wimberley Head). The piercing eyes of this image stare strongly back at viewers, asking us to confront wildlife eye-to-eye. By partnering with others committed to conservation, we all work together to care for nature. Please consider how your photography can help the environment.

Cohoes Falls, Cohoes, New York, rumbles with the water of the Mohawk River, which wends its way quietly across New York’s Southern Tier until just North of Albany. A large hydroelectric plant pulls water away upstream, but on this early morning, maintenance in the facility reduced the pull off, resulting in an impressive flow over the falls. Early morning sun backlit the spray. The name “Cohoes” is apparently derived from a Native American word, “Ca-ha-hoose,” which means “shipwrecked canoe.” I would not like to be paddling along the serene Mohawk only to be confronted with this shocking downstream sight!

The panoply of eye-popping colors found at the peak of the spring wildflower bloom keeps photographers shooting through all kinds of light. Here, late morning overcast light was perfect for capturing this redbud amidst a carpet of Virginia bluebells and daffodils. This scene unfolds annually along the woodland garden’s edge at Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm, Dayton, Ohio.

The unusual distortions created by circular fisheye lenses can be put to your advantage if you let the unique optical effects contribute to strong composition. In this spring image, made along the Vermilion River, Huron County, Ohio, curved tree trunks frame the hidden beauty of a nodding trillium, which holds its flower below its three leaves. While nodding trillium are not particularly fragrant, lying down among wild leeks to get this picture adorned me with the fabulous fragrance of onions!

I believe that the Ithaca / Watkins Glen area of New York has the greatest concentration of sizable (and picturesque) waterfalls per square mile of anywhere in the United States. In the upper gorge of Buttermilk Falls State Park, water drops twenty-five feet over several shelves before swirling below. A Sigma circular polarizing filter, a steady Gitzo tripod, and a remote trigger produced tack sharp rocks yet oh-so creamy water patterns. Most time exposures of waterfalls use shutter speeds between, say, 1/4 second to a about two seconds. In this case I chose to really build the softness of the cascades and smoothly depict the white eye of the whirlpool below, so I left the shutter open on this dimly lit morning for almost a half a minute.

A lone sunflower towers above this midwestern prairie, with purple coneflowers, Queen Anne’s lace, and other plants below. Periodic burning is the recipe for keeping indigenous species prospering, driving out the succession of woodland species. A super wide angle of view allows the sunflower blossom, positioned about 18” from the front of the lens, to dominate while showing the delicate array of grasses and wildflowers surrounding the yellow bloom. Knox County, Ohio.

McClures Beach, in spectacular Point Reyes National Seashore, California, is one of my favorite coastal locations for photography. At sunset, colors paint the sky, beach, and water. A slow shutter speed and shooting low to the ground contributed to this calmingly intimate view of an otherwise powerful and pounding surf.

Two times a year I lead photo workshops at Cornell University in conjunction with Cornell Outdoor Education. During a recent fall foliage workshop, we enjoyed shooting at spectacular Cornell Plantations. Sunrise is the best time to photograph the red-leaved maples that reflect in Houston Pond. I used a Sigma’s circular polarizer filter—one of the sharpest filters I have used in my career—to increase saturation and decrease overall contrast.

Monoliths dominate McClures Beach, Point Reyes National Seashore, California. A slow shutter speed and planting my tripod right in the surf, allowed swirling sea foam to paint strokes of white, contrasting with the jagged tones of rock towering above. Early March skies along the California coast are often decorated with late day clouds, but by the end of the month clear, blue skies diminish crepuscular color.

Eagle Cliff Falls in Havana Glen Park, Montour Falls, New York, is one of the most picturesque waterfalls I have photographed. Inside an incredible amphitheater of siltstone, McClure Creek plunges over a forty foot drop and then swirls gracefully as it makes it way down to a narrow glen (which begins right behind where this picture was taken). Two neutral density filters reduced the light to allow the bubbles to swirl. An additional polarizer filter cut more light and intensified the fall colors. This HDR image was produced from a single exposure processed at 4 exposure settings in Adobe Camera Raw (-2; -1; 0; 1) and then combined in Photomatix Pro 3.2.