Every shoot starts with an idea about what I want to depict. It could be something conceptual and elaborate, but can just as well be something more direct and contained. The idea could be about capturing environmental portraits of creatives, with the portraits meant to depict the creative's process, tools, space, and quirks. Or it could be about photographing a friend in a way that highlights a certain aspect of their personality (quiet, flamboyant, serious, jovial, ) or physicality (muscle definition, how they wear their hair, long legs, acrobatic skills, ...). Or it could be simply about the quality of natural light in a particular space. I recently collaborated on a conceptual shoot with a model, and it was her who proposed the idea.

Even though it is only October, and a bit too early for the annual round-up, here are my top-10 bird photography locations that I visited this year, and my favorite photos from each. With so many beautiful images, picking just 12 (+1) images out of these for my 2025 Wall Calendar/Planner was a bit of a challenge, and I had to get my friends involved in helping me choose the final images.

The primary challenge I had set myself for 2023 was to capture birds in flight. Photographing birds in flight, with unpredictable motion and cluttered scenes is challenging enough on its own, and it is made somewhat worse by the absence of phase-detect autofocus on the camera system I use. Nonetheless, I managed to capture some nice moments of birds in flight, and intend to continue capturing more this year.

Portrait of a heron (2022)