Untamed Images Blog

I have just added a new gallery to my website featuring more than two dozen images of mountain gorillas that I took in Rwanda this past August. You can see the gallery by clicking on the following link: Gorillas Gallery.

The image above is included in the new gallery and is one of my favorites. These two young gorillas entertained me and my fellow trekkers as they tussled with one another in a prolonged wrestling match. I’m afraid the expressions on their faces make it look like their interaction was a violent one, but it was in fact just good-natured play that they both seemed to enjoy thoroughly.

Black oak trees bordering Cook's Meadow in Yosemite National Park exhibit their golden fall colors on a crisp November morning.

A large dose of credit goes to my wife, Alison, for inspiring me to capture this image. As I was following a cooperative bobcat around Cook’s Meadow with my long lens, Alison wandered among the nearby oak trees featuring beautiful golden leaves. She took a quick grab shot on her iPhone of a composition similar to that of the above image and I was very intrigued when she showed it to me. A few minutes later the bobcat disappeared into the undergrowth for a nap, so I swapped out my 500mm lens for a wide angle zoom and set about reconstructing the iPhone image as I remembered it. After waiting a while for the skies to clear of the seemingly ever-present contrails, I fine-tuned the positioning of the camera to obtain a starburst effect from the sun, and I was able to create an image that conveyed the feeling of standing within this dazzling grove.

Stay tuned for a blog post featuring the aforementioned bobcat in the near future.