A 2016 suggestion for some interesting photographic sites

In 2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year and Looking at Flowers through a Macro Lens we spoke about great photographers of the wild, people should come to know, like Mike Bizeau, Leanne Cole, Dan Frugalberg, Pete Hillman, Gideon Knight, Cindy Knoke, Tim Laman, Rabirius,  and Purple Rays (Jonathan Udo Ndah). They all bring a different touch on the way we can look at nature. Rabirius even dares to bring his own graphic mastering to change the real view, giving it an other dimension.

Nature’s souls go to wild spaces – Cindy Noke

Those photographers show how while other’s thrive in the social whirl, a nature’s soul will find depth of meaning {Nature’s Soul~} or may explore the relationship between nature and civilisation (like for example A Book Of Animals by Rabirius).

Land of Light & Shadow~ Cindy Knoke

Even when we do have to find a small window of existence, those people have the magic touch on their fingers to show us the beauty of god’s universe. In such beautiful area the Divine Creator has given to mankind, in Bragg Creek, Alberta near both the prairies and the mountains lives also a photographer we would like to introduce to you.
Christopher Martin has an artistic background, having grown up painting and sketching.  Following university, he studied Chinese painting in Taiwan. His interested in the photographic medium came around 2000 and that has been his primary artistic direction for the past 10+ years which is not bad for us who can enjoy his third eye with which he allows himself to play with reality, to share it as he sees it or to create a version of it through long exposure, wide angles or motion blurs.  The freedom he has to photograph in so many different ways feeds his creativity and helps to drive his enthusiasm to create art.

His photography has been recognized in contests run by National Geographic, Urban Photographer of the Year, Photo District News, Photolife Magazine, Travel Photographer of the Year, World Photography Organization, Photofocus, Photography Masters Cup and others.  If you are interested in seeing a summary of some of these awards, please visit this page.

It is the city man, Arte Wolfe who inspires him. That son of commercial artists who graduated from the University of Washington with Bachelor’s degrees in fine arts and art education in 1975, has made in the short time of his photography career a remarkable testament to the durability and demand for his images, his expertise, and his passionate advocacy for the environment and indigenous culture, working on every continent, in hundreds of locations, and on a dazzling array of projects, making it possible for us to travel with him in our dreams. No wonder some of the world’s top magazines such as National Geographic, Smithsonian, Audubon, GEO, and Terre Sauvage wanted to offer their readers the magical view of this artist.

Pine Peak Toned Gelatin-Silver Print, 14×11″ Image, 20×16″ Mat – Don Hong-Oai

An other source of inspiration for christopher Martin came from the Vietnam University College of Art and studied with Long Chin-San in Taiwan before he fled by boat and came as a refugee to the United States where he resides completely within a Chinese community. Mr. Don Hong-Oai Bio got recognised at the Ansel Adams Gallery, Yosemite National Park, California in 1994 and got awards from the International Federation of Photographic Art, Switzerland and from the Chinatown Photographic Society.

Paul Nicklen, a globally acclaimed, Canadian-born photographer and marine biologist,and also a  ildlife Photographer of the Year Competition winner, was the other influencer for Martin. That Canadian photographer has been documenting both the beauty and the plight of our planet’s polar regions and our world’s oceans for over twenty years. In Europe his work is known by us mostly from the National Geographic Magazine. But he is also the is the recipient of more than thirty international awards, including the Natural Resources Defense Council’s BioGems Visionary Award for his material of several years showing the world how we need to be careful about the use of fossils, not to destroy the arctic. Born and raised on Baffin Island, Nunavut, grown up in one of the only non-Inuit families in a tiny native settlement amid the ice fields of Northern Canada, he is the right man to show how not only the Inuit are endangered but an entire animal-world. for us clearly also a photographer to follow and to see how he as  a founder and contributing photographer to SeaLegacy, can work out his plans on dedicating his efforts to shining a light into the issues, species, and ecosystems he so deeply cares about.
His photography book Polar Obsession captures up-close documentation of the lives of leopard seals, whales, walruses, polar bears, bearded seals, and narwhals, and gives a vivid portrait of two extraordinary, endangered ecosystems.

Transmogrify–Is That A Word? / Talacre Beach – Llyn Ogwen by Mike Hardisty

Based in the beautiful countryside of North Wales Mike Hardisty is an other artist who catches our eye in 2016, the year he has been trialling some new photography software ACDSee Ultimate and PhotoMatix {Llangelynin–A Very Small Church}. For him landscape photography forms a very important part of my life and capturing the ever changing scenery gives me a sense of discovery. For him, photography in the mountains or on the coast, experiencing changing light and weather conditions, is a continuous learning process and gives him the freedom to think and live.

For those who are stuck in a city and think there can not be a place for some green and colours they also should hear Chicago’s motto which is

Urbs Horto, or City in a Garden.

Given the amount of sprawl and environmental damage that’s occurred since its founding, the blog we like to introduce would find it hard to argue that Chicago is still a city in a garden. However, they can still have a garden in the city.

Jason gardens in Evanston, Illinois (zone 5), about one mile from the border with Chicago.

A view of the Blue Ridge Mountains

Jason Bertkay lives with his spouse, Judy, and has two grown sons. Judy, is in charge of photographs, while Jason is in charge of plants. They also motor down the Skyline Drive in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains,a.o..

The Texan Crescentspot photo by “bybio” the Back yard biology

We also can find a team of a mother, retired biology professor – former biology major, nurse daughter and blogger who can offer us some nice pictures. Even though the landscape looks (and feels) arid, southern Arizona seems to be a mecca for butterflies, perhaps because of the diversity of vegetation and flowers there, and they are able to have us enjoy those and many other animals and flowers in their region.

An Old Friend Returns – male Chaffinch – Pete Hillman

An other photographer who let us look often at his front and rear gardens is Pete Hillman, whom we mentioned already in earlier posts. Photography is his main hobby, but he does know to use a good eye and can give us close-ups of things most people even do not notice when walking around.  He knows the way of recording the beauty and wonders he discovers within nature. Most of the species found on his site were observed in the county of Staffordshire, England, where he lives, whilst others are from around various locations in the UK.

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Foggy Autumn Road by Rebecca Gillum whose gypsy soul keeps her searching

Winter comes early to the mountains. Rime ice covered trees in Smoky Mountain National Park. – Rebecca Gillum

From the road we also get lovely pictures from Rebecca Gillum. She knows the limitations of life and is content but is able to catch that moment in time and to present it for eternity. {So I Like Best of All Autumn} In her life she want to be willing
to be dazzled — to cast aside the weight of facts, and like Mary Oliver maybe even
to float a little above this difficult world. {To Be Dazzled}

We hope you too may be dazzled finding such nice photographs. Whilst the animals may have a well-defined hunting ground that the photographers are familiar with, they shall need patience to catch it, enabling to place that magic they saw in a moment for us to discover on a two dimensional plate.

A marmot seen on top of Mount Dana, Yosemite, CA, USA. The road in the background is Tioga Pass Road. (Edited version of original: sharpened and curve adjustment by jjron). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Please do find to read

Get the lenses out to getting closer again

Looking at Flowers through a Macro Lens

Birds, Birds Everywhere

2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year

8 Reasons We’re Looking Forward to Springtime Photography

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Find the interesting sites

1. Cindy Knoke + on Pinterest
2. Rabirius whom you also can follow on Pinterest
3. Don Hong-Oai Bio
4. Christopher Martin
5. Art Wolfe
6. Paul Nicklen
7. Say It With A Camera – Mike Hardisty
8. Garden in a city
9. Pete Hillman’s Nature Photography
10. Rebecca Gillum
11. Back yard biology

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Further reading

1. In My Own Words Weekly Photo Challenge- Tiny
2. Photography Journal Blog Weekly Photo Challenge- Tiny
3. Weekly Photo Challenge – Small on Tiny – Celina2609’s Blog
4. Our Own Little Walk of Fame – Aggie’s Amygdala
5. Say Tiny! – Blog of Hammad Rais
6. thephotoseye Tiny Thrills
7. Another Tiny View – Rebecca Wiseman Portfolio
8. Miss Jerz-tucky Weekly Photo Challenge- Tiny
9. Words Like Honey Weekly Photo Challenge- Tiny
10. deetravelssite.wordpress.com Tiny
11. This is Another Story Color Transformation
12. From Egg to Sheer Beauty – Micks Blog
13. Doug Couvillion’s Photo Blog Weekly Photo Challenge- Transmogrify
14. Sea Play Photography Weekly Challenge- Transmogrify
15. XingfuMama My little pumpkins don’t do scary
16. Crafting Photolog Weekly Photo Challenge- Transmogrify
17. Mataro Photographs Halloween Transmogrification
18. Nature & Travel Photos WPC – Transmogrify
19. Let the Images Speak Transmogrify
20. The Land Slide Photography Time
21. Mr. Finch
22. Photographs from the Edge- Review
23. On the Hunt
24. Take Away
25. A Twist of Moss
26. DX vs. FX cameras for wildlife photography
27. Breaking It Down
28. Of Fairytales
29. butterflies in the desert?
30. An Alien World #2
31. Land of Lilliput
32. Common Greenshield Lichen
33. Pawpaw Sphinx
34. This Way and That
35. Charming smile
36. Birds of the Texas Gulf Coast – Common Nighthawk
37. Great Horned Owl
38. Friday’s Frenzied Flights
39. “I’ve Got To Tell Everybody About This!”
40. Limb with a View
41. Caribou in Newfoundland
42. Even More Jelly ear
43. Golden Tanager (Tangara arthus)
44. A photographer’s eagle eye
45. Into the Sunset
46. A Dazzle of Zebra, a Journey of Giraffe and a Crash of Rhino
47. Best Camera Trap Captures – October 2016
48. Camdeboo – The Green Valley In The Great Thirstland
49. Up Close!
50. Pure Magnificence
51. Octoberfest 2016
52. Wild November Sky
53. Along the Rio Grande
54. Fotografare animali selvatici con TriggerSmart
55. One Left For The squirrels
56. A Highland Cow
57. Wings
58. Beautiful Bracken
59. Birds at the British Wildlife Centre
60. Supermoon
61. Supermoon #2
62. Drones and Machine Learning Combine to identify, protect endangered sea cows
63. Male Kestrel
64. Riverside
65. First Snow of the Season
66. Muddy Ibis
67. Hiding Place
68. Tiny
69. Crazy Legs
70. Weekly Photo Challenge: Tiny
71. Photographer Tim Plowden gets up close and personal with forest creatures
72. In the presence of greatness
73. Magpie
74. About Mites And Ticks
75. About Grasses, Sedges And Rushes
76. Swallow
77. Tiny friends
78. Junco Junkie
79. Dark Eye with a Catchlight
80. This Beautiful Bird
81. Bulrush

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