Shot of the Month - 2026
“Depth” - January 2026
20mm 1/125sec f/5.0 ISO 80
I captured “Depth” almost entirely by luck while hiking on a frozen lake in Rocky Mountain National Park with my parents over the 2025 Christmas holiday. I was playing with some camera motion shots that DID NOT turn out where I was spinning my camera with a slower shutter speed to try and create a spiraling Star Wars hyperspace effect. “Depth” was the result of a test shot where I was checking my camera settings more than anything and no camera motion was involved.
What I liked about this image was the layers that were present without the help of digital processing or fancy camera techniques (exposure stacking specifically). On the top layer (closest to the camera and most visible at the top of the image) there’s a layer of more liquid looking ice, maybe from where I had knelt just a minute or so prior. A layer deeper looked like rising air bubbles, caught in motion by freezing water on their way to rejoin the atmosphere. Finally, at the deepest layer, there were some larger air bubbles that looked like gigantic blueberries! Those blueberries were the inspiration for the color tone of the whole image - I wanted to emphasize their shape and texture, so I color-graded the whole image with purple and blue hues while making the blacks super deep.
“Don’t Eat Our Babies” - February 2026
600mm 1/1600sec f/6.3 ISO 400
I was sitting on the couch in the living room watching the Olympics when Staci came in and proclaimed there was a Bald Eagle flying around outside the apartment! I thought that was really neat, but also that there was zero chance of my seeing it since they’re something of a rarity in our area. It turned out I was wrong! A few minutes later I saw the eagle as it dove for cover behind some townhomes across from my apartment building. Then I noticed a lone Red-tailed Hawk had landed on the roof of my apartment building. I promptly ran to get my camera and hurriedly threw my big telephoto on so I could hopefully get some decent shots from our balcony. I got a few frames of the lone hawk staring in the direction of the fleeing eagle then, out of nowhere, a second hawk landed next to the first. I can only assume the pair of hawks is a mated pair and that they had just driven the eagle off from their nest which is on a cell tower a mile or so away from my apartment. The moment this shot occurred was when the smaller of the two hawks (the male?) took off towards its nest - I can only assume it saw the eagle flying in that direction and it was ready to get back in the fight. It was such a treat to be able to witness nature’s drama from my home.
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