Zion Fall Colors

Welcome to Fall!

Well I seemed to have missed the fall here in Northern Arizona. In fact most everyone did, one huge wind storm and all the pretty little yellow gems were stripped from the trees!

Unfortunately my spirit bear trip although incredible, didn't correspond with a trip to Colorado to photograph falls colors there either. So not to be denied, I pack up my gear and headed off the Zion National Park in Southern Utah. I have never really photographed fall colors in the Virgin Narrows before, so I didn't know what to expect. But I was definitely not disappointed!

Here are a few of my favorites that I feel really capture the amazing radiance of this spectacular place:





Nikon D3, 17-35 f2.8 Left Fork of North Creek, towards the Subway.

This is perhaps my favorite image of the southwest deserts! Hopefully you can see and feel why. Next I worked my way up the Virgin Narrows for the first time, and bumped into beautiful scenes like this.



Nikon D3, 24-70 f2.8

In approximately 10 hrs the first day, I only covered maybe 2 miles! I couldn't walk more than 100' and yet another astonishing scene would halt me in my tracks. Like this one here.



Nikon D3, 17-35 f2.8

Oh and this one as well, which I almost missed. A tiny a little scene, but the light was... well you can see - mesmerizing!



So, if you like what you see, and would like to see more images from my trip to Zion, please go here, where the first 13 images on the first page are all new, captured within the last 2 weeks.

South West Desertscapes

Thanks for having a look! Whooping Cranes are next, I hope!

Have a great Thanks Giving.

Shane McDermott

Great Bear Rain Forest

G'Day Nature Lovers

I just arrived home from a one week trip to the "Great Bear Rain Forest", on the central coast of British Columbia. The intention of the short excursion was to first try and find the elusive and extremely rare "Great White Bear" or "Spirit Bear". My second intention of this trip was to scout out this area for the possibility of offering small group photography tours to this area next year.

So how did it turn out? Well, having read many of the stories of the folks who had previously seeked to find the great spirit bear, I was a little doubtful about the possibility of actually finding one of these great bears. I had read of wildlife biologists searching the great bear rain forest for over 2.5 years before getting just a glimpse of this elusive rain forest giant.

So imagine my surprise when our head guide spotted our first white bear after being on the boat for less than an hour! We did see one other spirit bear two days later fishing under a water fall - needed to work really hard to get into a position to photograph this bear though. So I definitely consider myself extremely fortunate to have seen two "Spirit Bears" in less than a week!



Image Capture: Nikon D3, 200-400 f4 VR

This was the first white bear we seen, and due to the serious lack of salmon this year it has forced all bears, wolves, eagles and all other wildlife dependent upon the salmon spawn to search for alternate food sources at this time of year. This spirit bear was scouring the mountain sides looking for, finding and gorging himself on wild crab apples!



Image Capture: Nikon D3, 200-400 f4 VR

The search continues for more crab apples, amoungst the beautiful fall foliage. while waiting for 9 hours in the pouring rain in hopes of catching a glimpse of the great white bear fishing, this beautiful black bear showed up. I loved this situation and conditions (wet, cold and windy), so much so this has ended up being my favorite image of the trip!




Image Capture: Nikon D3, 200-400 f4 VR

white bears, black bears & last but not least, the grizzly bear. I like the setting of this shot with the bear against the dark wall.



Image Capture: Nikon D3, 70-200 f2.8 VR

If any of you are interested in seeing more images from this recent trip please visit this gallery on my website.

North American Bears


And finally, within the next month I will have details worked out for two up coming photo tours I have planned to the Great Bear Rain Forest in 2009. The first one will be May 23-28, to the Kutzamateen to photograph grizzly bears, and the second tour will be Oct. 4-11 to photograph the Great white "Spirit Bear".

Enjoy, shane

Three Sisters Wilderness

G'Day

Just returned from a brief four day trip to the Three Sisters Wilderness in Oregon. This is really my first attempt at photographing back country mountain wilderness scenes. Shooting conditions were really tough, lots a clear sunny days with high winds. There were really no clouds at all during the golden hours of the early and late day.

However, the last morning before returning back to Flagstaff, we were treated with one of the most amazing sunrises I have ever witnessed. Then the rest of the morning remained overcast which was ideal for waterfall photography.

Here are a few teasers, I should have a few more images loaded on to my site by the weekend.

Thanks for your interest.

Enjoy, Shane





Nikon D3, 17-35 - 2 stop GND





Nikon D3, 24-70





Nikon D3, 17-35, 2 stop hard GND

Outdoor Photographer Invitation!

This is not a date I will soon forget. May 12, just a week before I was to depart for my photo trip to Tanzania. I opened my email to see a message from the editor of Outdoor Photographer, in short, he was inviting me to participate in the upcoming annual "Landscape Special Edition".

Shocked was I .... what an honor and privilege to be invited to participate in something that has inspired my own photography since the beginning. It is not really clear how my work will be presented, from my interaction with their writer, it seems as though it may be a personal profile. Regardless, I am completely thrilled to even think that in just a few days I will be able to see my work in Outdoor Photographer. Wow! From what I can tell, here are the images that will be appearing:



Nikon D200, 12-24




Nikon D200, 12-24





Nikon D3, 17-35

Watch for the August issue, I sure am.

Thanks for your interest, Shane

Tanzania Migration Safari

It has been awhile since I have last blogged. There has been many time consuming and significant developments regarding my photography career. The least not being a safari I recently escorted to Tanzania Africa in June. This was my first time to the Serengeti in Tanzania, had an absolute fabulous time, and capture many memorable images. Here are just a few:



Nikon D3, 70-200




Nikon D3, 70-200




Nikon D300, 200-400





Enjoy, Shane

Romancing the Stone Part II

Hello Again

Here are a few more images from my recent trip to Vermilion Cliffs in Northern Arizona. These are all from White Pocket. All images were taken with the Nikon D3, 17-35 f2.8 or 70-200 f2.8.





















The second last image is a 3.5 minute exposure, the stars were starting to come out. Even at 3.5 minutes, still there was no noise!!! The D3 is an astonishing piece of equipment.

Till next post, shane

Romancing the Stone

G'Day

Just got back from a fabulous road trip to Northern Arizona's Vermilion Cliffs area. My friend Ken and I first visited South Coyote Buttes. This was my second visit to this particular area, first time was last sept. Here are a few of the images I managed to capture. This was my first landscape trip with my new Nikon D3. What an awesome landscape rig! I love the FX sensor.










All of the above images were capture with the Nikon D3 17-35 f2.8


After two day at South Coyote Buttes, we then visited White Pocket, a definite favorite for both of us. Tough to get to but worth the effort.




This image was captured with the Nikon D3 - 70-200 f2.8.

Part II to follow, hope you enjoy.

Shane

Light in Flight - More Birds

LIght in Flight - Florida Birds Part II

G'Day

As promised, here are more birds from Florida. Unfortunately the frames I place around the images in my blog posts seem to crop the photos, some images it doesn't matter much but others, the crop clips the wings or feet of the birds. Like the first one here, the top ducks wing is clip by th crop but is not in the original...oh well.



I am not totally sure, but I think these are black bellied whistling ducks.
Nikon D3, 70-200 f2.8 VR



Brown Pelicans. Nikon D3, 70-200 f2.8 VR




Brown Pelican in flight, Nikon D3, 200-400 f4 VR





Anhinga drying its wings. Nikon D3, 200-400 f4 VR




Wood stork doing a little home improvement. D3, 200-400 F4 VR

Well, for apparently being a down year for the birds, I am happy with what I seen I photographed. It is a big concern though that all the bird numbers seem to be way down. I may return to florida once more this year - at the end of April, there are nesting Ospreys I would love to photograph when the click start to leave the nest.

Enjoy, Shane