Favorite Location: Anywhere with lakes and mountains. Mt. Rainier and the Grand Tetons are excellent areas to shoot everything from wildflowers to prairie fields with mountains seeming to rise out of nowhere. Also, the Haines area around Alaska is a beautiful place to photograph oceans, mountains, and glaciers.

Comments on Photography:
I never was into photographing with a 35mm camera. In fact, until 2 years ago, I didn’t know the first thing about aperture. Only when I got a camera with the ability to keep the shutter open for more than a second (and a tripod) did I begin to experiment with true landscape shots and fully manual photography. I find that once you begin to master full control with your camera, you won’t ever go back to using preset ‘point and shoot’ modes.

Timing is another important element in landscape shots. I found that out the hard way when I was first in the Canadian Rockies and all my shots of the really beautiful areas were taken mid-day. Every image seemed washed out. I am a big fan of the ‘magic hour’, those brief moments during sunrise and sunset where the light is soft enough to capture the full range of contrast that the human eye can see. When it comes down to it, that’s what a photographer tries to do: to recreate a scene as you witness it, to convey that sense of mood and wonder you had while you stood there and photographed it.

Photography is a constant learning experience. Most people never even photograph up to the ability of their camera. I go back to some of my shots from my first trip across country and I’m actually embarrassed at the novice nature of my work. Most of my first mistakes were technical (wrong shutter speed, wrong ISO settings, bad f-stop for the lighting conditions), but I feel like the ‘eye’ for the shot was always there.

Having that ‘photographer’s eye’ is everything when it comes to composing a piece. I greatly admire those people who can take a shot of something as routine as a traffic sign or a mud puddle and make it beautiful. To me, that is a gift that is hard to teach somebody. Either you have it or you don’t.

Travel
I travel extensively, and I plan my travels also on the areas of the world that I feel I can attempt to take a really great picture at. Some places I’ve been too didn’t afford the opportunity to take a good shot the last time I was there, so I plan trips to go back and try again. This past summer I quit my corporate job and traveled 20,000 miles in 3 months to Alaska and back, taking over 10,000 pictures of every corner of this great country. There were many days of waking up before the sunrise in order to get into position to take shots – but it was worth every lost moment of sleep.

Contributions
Fishing Community Moderator
Pratt's Falls - Photography
Skaneateles Lake - Photography
Cayuga Lake - Photography
Carpenter Falls - Copywriting, Photography
New Hope Mills - Copywriting, Photography
Montville Falls - Copywriting, Photography
Great Gully - Copywriting, Photography
Buttermilk Falls State Park - Copywriting, Photography
Fellows Falls - Copywriting, Photography
Havana Glen - Copywriting, Photography
Frontenac Falls - Copywriting, Photography
Peppermill Gulf - Copywriting, Photography
Guppy Falls - Copywriting, Photography
Wildlife/Salmon Guide - Editor