Bragging Rights

I was thrilled and honored to have been named one of the Top 10 Professional Photographers Of The Year in the state of Virginia for 2019. In addition, the top image above was chosen as the Best Animal Image of 2019 at the annual professional photographers of Virginia competition.

The bald eagle image was shot from a private boat in the Inside Passage of Alaska last summer. It was a foggy gray day, with mist hanging in the valleys. We watched eagles for hours, fascinated by their aerial acrobatics as they took aim and grabbed fish in the clear, cold waters.

This kind of shooting requires a large supply of memory cards, and using Rapid Burst to capture a wide variety of images in a short period of time. The wing and body positions change constantly, so shooting with Rapid Burst gives you a much better chance of capturing a compelling shot. It is amazing how quickly these skillful hunters swoop and dive.

The other images shown are the other ones accepted into this competition. Under the eagle image, from left to right, are two Sandhill Cranes shot with a slow shutter speed for an artistic effect, a feather found on an Alaska beach (shot as I found it - I did not move the feather or add the rock), photographers photographing a brown bear in Alaska, and a water droplet on an Alaska iceberg.

All images were optimized in Lightroom, and no special effects or filters or other software was used.

As you may already know, the eagle image, titled "Eyes On The Prize," was also selected as one of the Top 100 images of the year by the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA).

TODAY'S QUOTE: "Success comes from hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice, and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do."  -- Pele