"Habitat" Photo of the Day: February 13, 2016

Habitat.

"Reflections of the Ocean" Photo of the Day: February 11, 2016

"Reflections of the Ocean."

"Riverside" Photo of the Day: February 10, 2016

"Riverside." Thanks to my buddy Timmy for allowing me to randomly snap photos of him during a recent hike along the icy shores of the Mississippi River. My addiction to black and white continues to grow stronger...

"A Storm is Brewing..." Photo of the Day: January 20, 2015

A storm is brewing over the rainforest...

Photography taken in the Blue Mountains National Park, New South Wales, Australia.

"Water Shadows" Photo of the Day: January 18, 2015

"Blanchard Springs" Photo of the Day: October 28, 2015

Blanchard Spring roams under a mountain in the Ozarks, helping to form the majestic Blanchard Spring Caverns underground. I shot this where the spring emerges from the mountainside, creating a lovely stream that continues to carve out the geology of the nearby mountains. Prior to excavating a separate entrance, this was the only known access point into the beautiful caverns.

"Old Faithful" Photo of the Day: October 24, 2015

"Old Faithful."

"A Small, Colorful World." Photo of the Day: October 17, 2015

"A Small, Colorful World."

"Reef Life" Photo of the Day: October 15, 2015

"Reef Life." This is another photo from one of my dives on the Great Barrier Reef that borders the eastern coast of Australia. The sheer amount of life residing throughout this incredible ecosystem is truly extraordinary.

Photo of the Day: August 9, 2015 "The Blue Flower"

I honestly had some post-processing fun with this photo! I really wanted the colors to "pop" within the image, so I played around in the final stages of production to ensure strong color throughout, especially with the flower itself.

Photo of the Day: August 8, 2015 "Bighorn Sheep in the Badlands"

Here is a group of Bighorn Sheep in Badlands National Park in South Dakota. We came across them while driving and pulled over for viewing where I shot them with a telephoto lens. Very unique creatures!

Photo of the Day: August 6, 2015 "Flooded Forest"

Here is an image that I shot earlier this week while walking some trails at Hyland Lake Park here in Minnesota. We came across this area of a lakefront that was inhabited by the remnants of the edge of the forest in the form of old trunks. The shore was absolutely covered in Green Leopard Frogs too!

Photo of the Day: August 2, 2015 "Butterfly at Lunch"

I shot this photo today while at the Minnesota Zoo outside in a patch of flowers. This gorgeous insect was feeding while I photographed it for a few minutes before it fluttered away. I intentionally blurred the background intensely to direct all of the focus onto the beautiful butterfly and the flower that it was resting on.

Photo of the Day: July 1, 2015

Here is another photo from this past weekend in northeastern Australia. While looking for Saltwater Crocodiles on the Daintree River my guide had to keep yelling at me to stop leaning so far over the sides of the boat to take photos. "Listen here mate, if you fall in I am not trying to save you from these croc-infested waters 'cause I reckon you'll be ripped to shreds in not too long," he said. Thankfully I didn't fall in! These crocodiles are the largest reptiles in the world and there are many cases of human fatality because of them. They have the most powerful bite of any animal in the world, closing their jaws with an insane 3,700 pounds per square inch of bite force. That is more than a lion, a great white shark, and even more than what the Tyrannosaurus rex was thought to have had. In this specific stretch of river the crocodiles have recently been attacking cows from a nearby cattle farm when they come down for a drink. This resulted in several cow carcasses being visible in the water. But beyond all of that these apex predators are crucial to their habitats and are so strikingly beautiful and perfect that they have not had to change since the time of the dinosaurs. I absolutely loved seeing these giants in the wild!

Photo of the Day: June 30, 2015

This beautiful animal emerged from out of the blue while I was exploring the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Northeastern Australia this past Sunday. This dinner plate-sized Bluespotted Stingray (Dasyatis kuhlii) was one of the hundreds of incredible aquatic lifeforms that captivated me with their beauty that day. Isn't it cute??

Royal National Park Birds

Hi everyone! So this past weekend I explored Royal Nation Park which is located an hour train ride south of Sydney's CBD. This park covers roughly 40,000 acres and stretches along miles of beautiful coastline and deep into "bush" environments. My group and I decided to take the scenic route in my taking a train from Sydney's Central Station to a stop called "Sutherland" and switching trains to head down a different line that ended in a cute little town known Cronulla and is where we then hopped aboard a ferry that took us to Bundeena, a small town on the fringes of the park on the coastline. From there we hiked along the coast for several hours.

Amid groups of screaming Sulfur-Crested Cockatoos and Rainbow Lorikeets were a couple of species of birds that are also quite unique. I have gotten a bit desensitized to the constant presence of cockatoos and lorikeets so seeing some other species was a refresher.

Photo of the Day June 7, 2015

READ FIRST (yes I know its long...): Hi everyone! I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. So here is the thing: if you are following me on social media (which you probably should be but hey, I'm super biased) you already know this, but as for the rest of you I want to let you know that I will be starting to post a single photo everyday. Thats right, seven days a week 365 days a year. Most of these I imagine will be photos that I took on that specific day and will help act as an actual daily blog. Every once in a while I will obviously share photos NOT taken on their respective days as there are many photos that I like of mine that I would like to see incorporated into this. These photos of the day will be dispersed throughout my social media sites (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and Instagram) along with being posted here on my blogspot blog. I hope you enjoy my photos and getting a more accurate peek into my everyday life! I will continue posting longer, less frequent (my goal is weekly) posts that are more in depth and focused on conversation rather than just displaying images. Without further ado, here is the first one.....

This photo was taken in Yellowstone National Park this past August. The way that water has shaped the landscape is incredible.