Photo:Engage

  “ Visual ideas combined with technology combined with personal interpretation equals photography. Each must hold its own; if it doesn't, the thing collapses."   - Arnold Newman     If you find life and its many challenges difficult to keep organized and some things are out of whack, you're not alone. Staying focused with minimal distraction is a key life goal for many of us. How can we stay balanced, and not in danger of falling like the proverbial fiddler on the roof?      Some would suggest that we prioritize our activities, putting our first things first as author Stephen Covey taught. We should integrate all aspects of our life, meaning to rid ourselves of that which is incongruent with our principles and goals. We should set goals for ourselves, so we have the beneficial stress of something to work for, and a reason to celebrate when we succeed. We should ensure we practice self care, for a faulty body has a hard time having a sound mi...

  “ I often wished I could capture and share the sudden moments of beauty that I would see around me."   - Caroline Mueller     It's been put many ways but we don't help our spouses as a nice-to-do, occasional thing. A marriage, or relationship, is best built as a complete partnership where both people, or birds in this case, work together selflessly for the good of the relationship or family. Nobody is doing a favor as both parties act without ego to help further the goals of the unit. As I wrote in my post on May 13, 2023...      Welcome back to Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge where the graceful great white egrets roost and rule. Both male and female egrets help with nest building. This elegant bird posed perfectly for me with a small stick in their beak as they prepared to fly back towards the rookery. I watched the whole congregation for a long time work on their nests together and care for their hatchlings. What a magnificent display and ...

  “ With photography, a new language has been created. Now for the first time, it is possible to express reality by reality. We can look at an impression as long as we wish, we can delve into it and, so to speak, renew past experiences at will. ”  - Ernst Haas     This was a wonderful time, nestled into a nook in the sand far back from the gentle surf, watching the light of the setting sun play on the sky over a beautiful corner of Hilton Head Island. It was unusually warm for the time of year, and I was dressed in sandals and shorts as I waited for the color to peak. As I passed the time on a Facetime call with my wife, three older ladies strolled up the beach towards me.      They seemed in a happy mood so I said hello and asked if they were locals. It turns out they were actually on vacation and were enjoying the warm evening with a walk in the sand. I offered to take their picture and one of them passed me their phone. Afterwards, they asked a...

  “ The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but having new eyes. ”  - Marcel Proust     I must admit I didn't realize how important the creation of watering locations by people was to the sustaining power of the refuge system. Like many, I simply assumed that they had always been there, that they were natural features. Without the water, the many avian, aquatic, and terrestrial species that depend on the refuges would have little choice but to compete with people and lose. People built and maintain many of the ponds, lakes, tributaries, and watering holes in the refuge system and it's to them and their hard work that I salute. As I wrote in my post on May 6, 2023...      Let’s take one last look for now at one of the many manmade water sources in Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge. This section of the Oxpen Branch, a small tributary system between the Refuge’s various ponds and lakes, is near the curiously ramped v...

“ Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph. ”  - Matt Hardy     You probably know that President Theodore Roosevelt directed the creation of our amazing National Parks, but did you know he also founded the National Wildlife Refuge System in 1903? On March 14 of that year, he established Pelican Island NWR along Florida's Atlantic Ocean coast.      Since then,  more than 560 wildlife refuges are in place across this country, and they're all managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Each NWR unit can be a wildlife refuge, a conservation area, a marine national monument, or a waterfowl production area. The different units help with conserving native species that depend on that land or water to thrive by using scientific management  methods. And I think they're another of our many national treasures.     As I wrote in my post on Ap...

  “ Everywhere is something which could be beautiful. You must only be able to see and to know what and how to take off, to crop from the infinity. ”  - Florin Constantinescu      This day demanded the polarizing filter to clear up the glare from the sun's light reflecting from the water. And how the blues and greens did pop! As I wrote in my post from April 1, 2023...      Driving along toward home in north central South Carolina, I began to get hungry for lunch. I had some homemade pulled pork nice and warm in my Hot Logic mini portable oven and a couple rolls and some mayo were ready. But where to stop? Quite out of nowhere, on my left suddenly was a sign for the Carolina Sandhills National Wildlife Refuge. A quick signal and brake and I was easily in the nice quiet parking lot. In fact, I was the only one there. Although the visitor center should have been open, the staff must have been elsewhere because I saw nobody else during my visit....

  “ We rely, I think, on landscape photography to make intelligible to us what we already know. ”  - Robert Adams     Not every visit to a special place will have great photographic conditions, but the subject deserves an image, does it not? Here I spent a few hours walking in the amazing forest and swamp on the raised wooden boardwalk through the epic Congaree National Park, enjoying every minute in the subdued light. As I wrote in my post on February 25, 2023...      The largest intact copse of old-growth bottomland hardwood forest in the southeastern United States, Congaree National Park lets you walk into the past, to a time before the mass deforestation of most of our country’s native forests. This we can do largely through the efforts of one dedicated man, journalist Harry Hampton, who lobbied relentlessly to save this 11,000 acre forest from the lumber companies.  'Congaree Bald Cypress'      Congaree National Park is named f...

  “ My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport. ”  - Steve McCurry     It's always exciting to me to realize that the place names around us often derive from a notable person or event in the past. Do you get that same thrill?  Here's an example from my post on April 15, 2023...      Scottish trader Alexander Mackay, adventuring under the commission of the Carolina colony Lords Proprietor, sought to exercise a land grant in the southern part of the colony. Later commissioned a colonel in the Beaufort District Militia, he received a grant of 200 acres on an island which had been part of an earlier land grant to the Osbourne family.      The island was also occupied by the Yemassee tribe as a lookout post when that native tribe was used as a buffer between the neighboring English and Spanish colonies. There was an Indian fort at the northern end of the island leading to the local name of Lo...

  “ You just have to live and life will give you pictures. ”  - Henri Cartier-Bresson      From native American fishing grounds to colonial homestead to plantation worked by slaves to hunting retreat to wildlife refuge, Pinckney Island in lowcountry South Carolina has witnessed much in its recorded history. I shared some details in my post from January 14, 2023...      I’ve referred in my recent birding posts to the beauty of Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge. In this one, I thought I’d show you a view of the refuge itself. As you walk north along the main trail, off to your left past the marsh you will see Mackay Creek, a lovely blue sliver of water that also separates the South Carolina mainland from the island of Hilton Head. The creek is named for Alexander Mackay, the first European to call Pinckney Island his home. The island was later sold to the famed Pinckney family, one of whom was a signer of the Constitution. After the Civil War...

  “ Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better. ”  - Albert Einstein     Do you think this precariously perched fellow has any idea that it’s National Bird Day today? Although he looks quite happy, many of his avian cousins are in dire straits.       According to Julia Jacobo reporting today for ABC News, “the majority of bird species in the U.S. face a grim future in coming decades if environmental efforts, such as mitigating climate change and decreasing habitat degradation and loss, are not implemented on a larger scale.”      She notes that, “birds face human-induced threats, such as climate change, disruption of natural systems, habitat loss, poaching, poisoning, outdoor cats, collisions into glass windows and the severe decline of bug populations, which many bird species feed on, according to experts.”      So maybe keep your cat inside and don’t worry about cleaning your windows. Avoid...

  “ I almost never set out to photograph a landscape, nor do I think of my camera as a mean of recording a mountain or an animal unless I absolutely need a 'record shot.' My first thought is always of light. ”  - Galen Rowell     I was surprised by how bright the birds were in the afternoon sun. Their white feathers reflected so much light that my camera consistently overexposed them unless I took great pains to meter directly on their gleaming bodies. Of course, this darkened the background behind the birds, but I think it resulted in a beautiful look to the image. See for yourself as I share what happened in my post dated December 3, 2022...  Although my visit started with a gross underestimation of how far I would be hiking in the South Carolina lowcountry heat and humidity, I was also cursed with the hubris of ignoring the large sign warning me to bring drinking water as there would be none available inside the refuge. After walking a long way...

  “ I wish that all of nature's magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed. ”  - Annie Leibovitz     So there I was on the beach, early in the morning as always, to capture some landscape images in the lovely South Carolina Lowcountry sunrise light. As I wandered along, I was delighted with the sheer number of shorebirds along this still very natural bit of shoreline. Hilton Head Island has only been connected by road to the mainland since the mid-1950s, so the area is still quite impressively pristine. And, to my surprise, I came across this intrepid pair. As I wrote in my post from May 21, 2022...      You can’t imagine how delighted I was to witness these two wonderful horseshoe crabs crossing each other’s paths as they headed out to sea one sunrise morning. I watched them travel about the beach for quite awhile before they lined up for, pardon my pride, this spectacular composition.      A...