Spring Bloom by Kari Post

Spring is my absolute favorite time of year. I love everything about it—the warmer weather, longer days, singing birds, and burst of new life in the form of colorful fragrant flowers and cute fuzzy baby animals. The pink-purple blossoms of these Eastern Redbud trees, photographed during late April at the lower elevations of Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, are a perfect example of why spring is my favorite season.

Equipment Used: Canon 1D Mark II N, 70-200mm f/4L IS USM, 1/4s, f/16, ISO 100, tripod.

Knowing your subject is imperative to getting good photographs of nature on a consistent basis. The more you know about the wildlife you are shooting—its behavior, where it lives, when it is active, what it likes to eat—the more likely it is that you will end up in the right place at the right time ready to capture its finest moments. Forster's Terns, for example, like to fly into the wind, like most birds. They also feed on fish, which they hunt by hovering over water, and then plunge diving below the surface to catch their prey. On this visit to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, I noticed a bunch of terns hovering over a culvert that passed under the road. The culvert churned up the water, bringing the fish close to the surface and making for easy pickings for the terns and other birds. I observed the birds for a while, and noticed that the wind was at my back, coming from the same direction from which the sun would set, perfect conditions for getting head on shots of the birds in flight and hovering over the water. I got into position and practiced tracking the birds as they repeatedly returned to the culvert to hunt. As the sun sank lower into the sky, I was able to capture this beautiful image of a tern hovering in mid-air, its wings stretched like those of an angel against a powdery white cloud hanging in the pale blue sky. Knowing a bit about the location in which I was shooting and the subject I wanted to capture enabled me to predict that a good photo opportunity was forming and make the most of the situation.

Pictured: Canon 1D Mark II N, 300mm f/2.8L IS USM, 2x Mark II Extender, 1/2000s, f/5.6, ISO 400, handheld.

Kari Post may be NatureScape.Net's youngest forum moderator but she's certainly no newbie to the nature photography scene. A lifelong lover of both nature and photography, she stumbled across NatureScapes more than six years ago, and has since become a well respected member of the staff, contributing behind the scenes as an editor in addition to moderating the Landscapes Forum since 2009. For this feature, we caught up with Kari to learn a bit more about how she got into nature photography and what she hopes to accomplish with it in her promising years ahead. Continue reading »

Everything I have ever heard from those who have been to Costa Rica has been overwhelmingly positive, and after having just spent two weeks there as a student participant in a graduate level class on Tropical Ecology and Conservation, I can easily understand why. Continue reading »

Meet Greg Downing, Kari Post and Tara Woodfin—come say hi at our booth near the main registration desk and register to win door prizes, get product demos, etc. Also Greg will be conducting a series of popular classroom seminars and field workshops.

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Everyone loves new toys, right? Well Gitzo's Systematic tripod family just got a facelift. The Systematic series has long been the choice of many top nature and outdoor photographers, who rely on Gitzo's durable, reliable carbon fiber tripods to support their… Continue reading »