The Tool That Became My Favorite Toy
February 05, 2026
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Camera: Tool or Toy?
Text and photos by Heather Cline
Bald Eagle making an unexpected fly by
There’s an ongoing debate — at least in my own head — about whether a photographer’s camera is a tool or a toy. I suspect a lot of photographers think of it as a tool because it’s how we create, how we express ourselves, how we translate what we see in...
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Challenge #5: Mist Opportunities
February 04, 2026
Fog is winter’s most generous gift to photographers, softening the world, resulting in some mysterious and moody images. For this week’s challenge, head outside on those misty mornings when the horizon disappears and everything feels a little quieter. Fog can transform wildlife into silhouettes, turn ordinary trees into ghostly shapes, and give eve...
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Queen’s Bath… and Apparently I Was There
February 03, 2026
Have you ever scrolled through old photos and thought, I don’t remember taking that… or even being there? I usually recall every detail of a place I’ve photographed — the heat, the wind, the stillness, all of it. So I was genuinely surprised when this image popped up and I couldn’t place it. Thankfully, I label everything and quickly started to rec...
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Uncharismatic, Unforgettable: Creatures That Deserve More Love
January 29, 2026
by Heather Cline
Many of the species that quietly hold ecosystems together aren’t the ones that end up on posters or fundraising campaigns. Conservation biologists often call them “uncharismatic,” not because they lack beauty, but because they don’t fit our cultural idea of what’s lovable. Yet these animals do some of the heaviest ecological lifti...
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Challenge #4: Strong Light, Simple Forms
January 28, 2026
This week’s photo challenge is all about silhouettes — those bold, graphic shapes that appear when a subject is placed against strong backlight. I’m starting with a photo of swans gliding across the horizon, their forms reduced to clean outlines against a fiery sky. Silhouettes are a great way to simplify a scene and focus on gesture, posture, and...
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Do you see what I see? A Behavioral Snapshot
January 27, 2026
A small group of black‑tailed deer stood completely still when I spotted them, all facing the same direction with their ears forward and their bodies tense. I never figured out what caught their attention, but their synchronized focus is a good reminder of how deer detect danger: they rely on many sets of eyes and ears to notice subtle movement or...
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Negative Space: The Secret to Cleaner Compositions
January 22, 2026
by Heather Cline
Negative space is one of the most understated compositional tools in photography, but it can be quite powerful. By intentionally leaving parts of your frame empty, you give your subject room to breathe and create a sense of calm that’s hard to achieve any other way. In nature photography, where scenes can be chaotic or visually...
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Challenge #3: Texture
January 21, 2026
This week’s photo challenge is all about texture — the patterns, ridges, and tactile details that give a landscape its voice. I’m kicking things off with a photo from Zabriskie Point, where the badlands rise and fall in waves, each crease catching light in a different way. Texture invites us to slow down and look closer, to notice the way form and...
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Whiskers, Wonders, and a Whole New Perspective
January 20, 2026
This week’s shot features three baby possums piled together in a tangle of whiskers and wide‑eyed curiosity — a reminder that even the most misunderstood creatures have a quiet charm of their own. Possums often get a bad rap, but they’re ecological powerhouses: they devour ticks by the thousands, clean up carrion that would otherwise spread disease...
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Raven Intelligence
January 15, 2026
Raven Intelligence: Five Skills That Set Them Apart by Heather Cline
Ravens are the kind of birds that make you stop and wonder what’s really going on behind those dark, intelligent eyes. They’re problem‑solvers, masterminds, acrobats, and social strategists wrapped in glossy black feathers — a species that blurs the line between instinct and in...
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Challenge #2: Extreme wide angle
January 14, 2026
This week’s photo challenge is all about going extreme wide angle. Grab the widest lens you own and see how far you can push perspective. Wide glass has a way of bending the world into something a little surreal — like this 15mm view of Mushroom Rock in Death Valley, where the edges of the earth seem to curve right out of the frame. You can shoot i...
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Pastel Therapy
January 13, 2026
When winter feels heavy, I sometimes go back through my photos, looking for one like this. Mono Lake is a popular location for landscape images for a reason. The formation known as 'the pirate ship' looks like a tiny vessel drifting through calm waters - and the soft pinks and blues serve as an instant warm up! Sometimes a single sunset is enough t...
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How to Photograph Wildlife When the Light Is Terrible
January 08, 2026
Text and photos by Heather Cline
Wildlife activity doesn’t always line up with what’s convenient for us as photographers. Animals are often most active at dawn, dusk, deep in forests, or when the weather turns — all consistently challenging lighting conditions. Even experienced photographers wrestle with noise, motion blur, and unpredictable expos...
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Photo Challenge 1: Bridges, pathways and walkways
January 07, 2026
Feeling stuck or looking for a spark of inspiration? Starting today, I’m kicking off a new weekly creative challenge, each one built around a simple theme to get the ideas moving. This week’s theme is “bridges, pathways, and walkways,” and you can interpret it in any way that speaks to you—literal or abstract, photographed, painted, sketched, or cr...
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Trakai Island Castle: A Fortress in the Fog
January 06, 2026
On a recent trip to visit family in Latvia, we took a day trip to Lithuania to visit some historical landmarks. On this very foggy day at Trakai Island Castle, I was sure the panorama I captured would end up in the delete pile — the mist over Lake Galvė was so dense it was difficult to see any details of 14th‑century fortress. But as I began to edi...
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