I’ve taken a lot of photographs over this past year and have spent a lot of time with photography, including attending seminars, workshops, lectures and field trips.  It’s been a ton of fun and there is still much for me to learn about nature photography.  I’ve been fortunate to have received some incredible instruction this year from some of the top pros in the business, like Tony Sweet, Joe Rossbach, Ian Plant, Moose Peterson, Scott Kelby, Joe McNally, Greg Downing and Rick Samon, all very gifted photographers and teachers.  I’m looking forward to continuing to learn more in 2010 and improving the quality of my photographs.

I thought I’d share some of my favorite images from 2009….

Today the snow had stopped and the sun was shining, but the storm that passed through yesterday left some new scenery, like the snowy drifts above reflecting the light from a setting sun. Before the sun had set, the backyard was once again a center of local bird activity in search of food.  Another day of bird watching and photography was in store.  Some additional images from today are below.

Tufted Titmouse:

White-breasted Nuthatch:

Black-capped Chickadee:

Female House Finch:

A history-making snow storm hit the Mid-Atlantic states today dumping between 15″-20″ of snow in my area of Virginia.  The snowfall made my backyard feeders very popular with the local bird community.  I spent several hours watching and photographing these hungry visitors.  There was a good variety of birds, from Blue Jays (above) to Cardinals, Wrens, Juncos, Woodpeckers, Crows, Sparrows, Mourning Doves, Chickadees and Titmice.  Some of the visitors are shown below.

Dark-eyed Junco:

Female Downy Woodpecker:

Male Cardinal:

Female Cardinal:

Carolina Wren:

Male Red-bellied Woodpecker:

A wet and rainy day provided me the chance to catch up on post-processing some photographs and updating some photography web sites I belong to.  It also gave me the chance to play around with a White Pine cone I brought inside from the backyard.  I spent  quite a bit of time and utilized a number of tools to photograph the ‘cone’.  First I put on my 105mm f/2.8 lens to get up close.  The pine cone was wet from today’s rain, so I tried a polarizer filter to cut back on the shimmer (without much success).  Then I threw the pine cone into the microwave to dry it off, but that just drew out the sap (and made the house smell like pine trees!).

I also experimented with reflectors and diffusers, even used a flashlight to see what would happen.  I’m not sure I achieved much in the way of a photograph but it was certainly a useful learning experience, especially on a nasty weather day like today.

Today was sunny with cloudless skies and a trip to Huntley Meadows park offered some good birding.  Among the large number of Canada Geese were several pairs of Hooded Mergansers (one of the males is shown above).  Also seen were Mallards, Blue-winged Teals and several female Northern Shovelers (photo below).

There were plenty of other birds in the park, including Red-bellied and Red-headed woodpeckers, Sparrows, Goldfinch, Red-winged Blackbirds, a Bald Eagle and Red-shouldered Hawk, plus Bluebirds and hundreds of Grackles moving through the park.

The first snow of this winter season arrived here today so I made sure the bird feeders had something available.  When the snow covers the ground, the birds seem to hit the feeders first.  Sure enough, the suet feeder brought some woodpeckers into the yard including the Downy above and the Red-bellied below who is waitng on a nearby tree for his turn at the feeder.

After several of days of wet, foggy, overcast weather, the sun finally popped out today and so did the wind, gusting up to 40 mph.  With this much wind I wanted to experiment using long exposures on large bodies of water.  I headed to Mason Neck state park along Belmont Bay to see if I could make some long exposures.  The wind along the bay was so powerful, I had a lot of difficulty keeping my camera steady during the long exposures, so I decided to change my plan and work on composition.  Repeating patterns are a good compositional style.  The photo above shows the incoming wave mimicking the line of debris along the beach.  This photo was one of many that I took in this exact location looking for the best water pattern.

Another compositional  style is the inclusion of leading lines in your photograph to help the eye move through the frame. This is what I tried to capture below with the sand patterns leading out to the bay and sky in the background.