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         Just a grey chunk of rock, or an intriguing mountain with mysterious stories of history and hauntings? This is Superstition Mountain with a host of interesting history and hist-stories of its own. Its shape is curious, but from a photography perspective, unless you wait for just the right time of day to shoot it, position, and contort your body for the perfect angle-as I did here, it shoots as just another huge grey chunk of rock sitting alone in Arizona. For me, the west presented a whole different mindset for great photos because- as most of my friends know, I'm more of a purist. We did a wonderful exercise at cnn using software to enhance our photos, but since they're "news" they would only post things raw; completely unaltered in any way. For that reason, I guess I prefer to show reality in our natural world vs a computer generated work that's not really relevant to anything is my view. That said, the challenge of using what nature offers us with ligh

  ODE TO "RADAR" On July 2, 2014 Radar was a beautiful and healthy Great Egret A few years later, Radars age and perhaps his lifes work took its toll Admittedly, this isn’t the norm for my nature photographs as there’s no intriguing background artistically colored by the setting sun; no special textures in the shot, or unique behaviors displayed. In this case however, it's an important photograph that documents what this Great Egret ultimately sacrificed for our fragile ecosystems.  Egrets are popular here, but this one is probably like none you’ve ever seen or will ever see.  This Great Egret became an icon to everyone who saw it. If you’ll look closely, you’ll notice thin wires coming out of his back and in this shot, a transmitter implanted under his feathers is visible.  Radar did his part. He's the perfect example to explain to children how humans are working with wildlife to help preserve our fragile environment. This was also the last time we saw this Great Egr

The insect on this Hosta bloom is the perfect example of symbiosis between plants and insects, but it's not the only one.   Gardening became especially popular when Covid suddenly forced us to become more mindful, and we realized how unimportant shallow, useless things we'd been pointlessly chasing actually were.  Most of us were given more downtime than we ever wanted, and we were more less forced to look back at what made us happy, fulfilled, and stress free, not what we were told would make us happy.  That's when nurseries and gardening centers suddenly grew in popularity and they ran out of so many items because people were suddenly remembering how therapeutic "playing in the dirt" was again and began gardening in their own backyards. Some of us extended the gardens we'd established, while others spread their creative wings for the first time. And most found the benefits of this new physical activity was surprisingly rewarding.  The satisfaction we felt