Photography is an excellent way to educate and inform people about the plants, animals, and ecosystem that we live in.  As a professional I try to find and use the best images I can to get a point across.  Some of my favorite subjects to photograph are tidal plants and animals, shorelines, streams and rivers, and birds.  I am happy to share my images with groups or organizations who would use them for educational purposes, without cost.  Just contact me for details.   Diving DeepA humpback whale fluke angles back into the water for the next dive.

Last night I attended a Salem Digital Photography Group Meetup and one of the topics on the agenda was photographing birds in flight.  As someone who loves to photograph birds, I was interested in what the presenter would have to say. 

For the most part, her presentation confirmed much of what I had learned myself through some thousands of clicks of the shutter. The tips she provided are listed here:

• Have all your settings dialed in before setting out into the field.
• Shoot with a very fast shutter speed (using shutter speed priority mode).
• Let your camera select the ISO to suit the amount of light available.
• Choose an appropriate f-stop to capture the field of view which will have the whole bird in focus.  (This is one tip I really liked... as I have many shots with a depth of field that is too narrow to have my subject in full focus). 

I would also add a few tips of my own to hers, just to round out the advice.  

• Know your subject's behavioral traits.  Often times they will indicate when they may fly off the perch with some tell-tale signs (they lean forward, look around).  
• Preselect your focus point to the center focal point.  This will enable you to quickly get your subject in the frame and start focusing on them prior to releasing the shutter.  Having the center focal point selected also gives you the best chance of a composition that balances the image, with space both in front and behind the subject.   

One of the best ways to see the Island of Kodiak, is by air.  On one of our afternoons we chartered the Andrew's Airways company for a Bear watching trip on the Katmai Coast.  We almost didn't go...  We got a call early that day, letting us know that the bear watching companies were having trouble locating the bears(who would have thought), due to a late salmon run, and the abundance of ripe salmon berries up in the mountains.  It was also a hot day (for Kodiak standards).  Thankfully the staff of the company were persistent and the scout they sent out found a group of bears hanging out in Geographic Bay.  So we got the call and decided to go.  I'm so glad we did.  While seeing the bears was pretty amazing, the scenic quality of the landscape just blew me away.  

The flight over and back was spectacular.  The only downside was having to shoot photographs through a dirty, curved, window.  Still, I think some of the shots of the landscapes came out excellent and provide a perspective on the landscape that you can only get from the air.