I took this photo of a red kangaroo in a place called Flinders Ranges National Park in South Australia. This is where the mountains and the Outback meet and it’s a greet place to view not only kangaroos, but also emus. What I liked about ths shot was the very narrow depth of field created by the low angle of view.
This shot of an impala was taken in Tarangire National Park in Tanzania, Africa back in 1999 — my first wildlife excursion out of the country and the trip that made me want to do this for a living. I’m still working on the doing it for a living part.
This lemur is called a diademed sifaka and it was photographed in central Madagascar near the town of Perinet. I was on an island in the middle of a large lake where lemurs rescued from poachers, injury and habitat loss roam freely. They are quite habituated to people and I was able to lay on my back and photograph this one with a wide angle lens as he hung just above me. There are several other species of lemur on the island, including red fronted brown lemurs, common brown lemurs, black and white ruffed lemurs and bamboo lemurs. This was the only diademed sifaka on the island but I saw and photographed a few more in the surrounding national park. With their deep red eyes and golden and black coats they really are one of the more interesting looking creatures in a country of interesting looking creatures.
This Atlantic puffin was photographed on Machias Seal Island, just off the northern coast of Maine. The island remains a disputed territory between the U.S. and Canada, although there is a continuously occupied lighthouse on the island, run by the Canadians. They consider the island part of New Brunswick. There are two towns in Maine that offer trips to the island to photograph the birds, Jonesport and Cutler. No Canadian companies offer trips. Other than the lighthouse, there are 8 or so blinds on the island from which to photograph the puffins and other birds. Apparently there has been some concern from the Canadian side that tourists landing on the island might not be good for the birds but there has been no effort so far to outlaw the practice. www.seancrane.com
May is horseshoe crab mating season and the greatest congregation of them in the world is in the Delaware Bay. Each high tide brings the crabs to shore where they lay their eggs. They peak during full moons but are also active during a new moon (which was the case when I took this photo). It also helped that dead high tide was just after sunset making it the perfect time to get slow exposure photos. They are actually not even crabs but more closely related to spiders and scorpions and are one of the oldest living creatures on earth, predating both dinosaurs and birds by about 150 million years.
This is a green parrot snake from Madidi National Park in the Amazonian region of Bolivia. I was just outside the lodge when I saw this guy moving around in a pile of leaves. There were a couple of other people around and the snake raised up into this defensive pose and started looking around from one person to the other, freezing for seconds at a time with its mouth open. This gave me several opportunities to get slow shutter speed exposures in the dim light (this one was at 1/30 of a second handheld with my 200-400 vibration reduction lens).
I came across this red fox mother and pup early one morning while driving through Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Delaware. There was another pup too, and they were very habituated to humans, allowing me to photograph from fairly close range. It was one of those moments when everything came together nicely — the sun was in the right place, the background was nice and the animals interacted as if I wasn’t there. This shot was featured on National Geographic’s website as their photo of the day on Feb. 14th.
This infant orangutan was only a few days old when I took this shot. The mother was extremely gentle and attentive with the way she carried it around in a very human way. The baby seems almost defenseless and sick in this photo, but a few minutes later it was crawling around in the mother’s lap and breastfeeding.
Every evening, just after the sun went down, the red eye tree frogs in Tortuguero National Park, Costa Rica came down from their daytime resting spots high in the trees. The males croak to establish territory and to attract mates. I often will go out spotlighting alone, and finding the frogs in this particular location wasn’t difficult. The hard part was aiming the headlamp on the top of my head at the frog while at the same time looking through the viewfinder. Luckily, tree frogs tend to be patient subjects.
Going to Uganda to photograph gorillas caused me a lot of anxiety. In my short visit, I knew I’d only get one brief opportunity. The problem isn’t finding the gorillas. That’s pretty much guaranteed, although you may have to trek a while first. The problem is, once you do find them, you only get one hour to visit. This is so humans have as little negative impact as possible. While tracking, I was hoping, praying, pleading for decent, overcast light when we came across them. And then just as the sun dipped behind a cloud they appeared.
Nikon D700 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 150mm) ISO 800, f/2.8 at 1/125th of a second