My guest Steve Perry joins me to share about his trip to Theodore Roosevelt National Park where he photographed a Prairie Dog wide angle with auto capture on a Nikon camera. We also chat about always looking around for other options when shooting, specifically on workshops. We talked about his take on being creative with wildlife photography and wrap up talking about how much less attention his videos about field-craft and techniques get compared to videos about gear.

Website: www.backcountrygallery.com

Instagram: @backcountrygallery

Prairie Dog shot

Bison photo

Anhinga backlit

It's the 200th episode! A huge thanks to all of you listeners both new and old that have been listening to the show. This week Brad shares about his time photographing surfing ducks, and his time with friendly Cormorants. I share about my first time swimming with sharks in the Bahamas and then we wrap up the show talking about how our photography and approach to it has changed since 2019 when the first episode of this podcast came out!

Luca Lorenz - Tufted Duck ICM

Brad’s surfing duck

Brad’s closeup Cormorant

Brad shares about photographing some waterfowl and the Sparrow that was almost perfect until another person showed up. I share about my morning using the drone to photography and video wading birds in the marsh, as well as a recent visit to the beach in Hilton Head, and wrap up with an amazing 4 day trip to Jekyll Island in Georgia. We wrap up the show answering a listener question from Cody who asks: Hey Ray, I don’t stay up to date on all your podcasts but here’s a topic idea I had recently - have there been any times where you’ve said to yourself, “this idea did not work as well as I thought it would.”? What were some of the lessons learned, did you abandon the idea or push forward with it? It sounds like you like to plan out a lot of your shots, how often does it not work out the way you thought it would?

John Alessi joins me to discuss his recent outings making sparrows look beautiful in a meadow, the challenges of winter waterfowl with a local drought, and trying to push himself and at the same time find balance in his photography life.

Instagram: @photomaticjohn

Brad shares about his experience photographing waterfowl specifically through foreground bushes and trees, I share about all the gear I keep buying and testing as well as all the work that went into updating my Lightroom course. Then we both discuss the profile grid changes from Instagram this past week.

Brad’s Cormorant Photo

My guest Khaldoon Aldway joins me to discuss the joys of shooting the desert of Dubai, photographing extreme closeup details of colorful birds, he shares the story of how he captured a stunning image of a Sand Gazelle small in frame in the desert dunes.

Instagram: @khaldoon.aldway

Pharaoh Eagle Owl

Sand Gazelle

It’s our first recording of the new year and it’s been two weeks since Brad and I talked so this is a longer one! Brad shares about his first experince with his new Nikon Z 100-400mm lens. Ray shares about his past two weeks of travels from Caddo Lake in Louisiana and Texas wrapping up in Hilton Head, South Carolina.

Brad’s Ptarmigan photo

Maxime joins me to discuss his love of photographing wildlife in the winter and snow and we talk a lot about what it's like to be a full-time wildlife photographer.