Art of the Day: Bed Head Hunt’s Bumble

This is a great shot of a Hunt’s bumble bee on a Russian Sage. Probably one of my favorite bumbles to photograph. Every one looks like it has bed head. So unkempt looking. I can kind of relate.

Really, just a beautiful shot. This is a square crop, but it looks great in a wider rectangle, too. In other words, it does well at this 1:1 aspect ratio, but also looks great at 2:3 and 3:4. So take your pick.

Art of the Day: Double Bald

What a great shot of a bald eagle there on the edge of the ice. Shot this one in January 2021 at the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. If you’re ever in the area, it’s worth a trip. It’s a neat place and the bird population there changes constantly.

Bald eagles there, in my experience, are often pretty shy and don’t often stick around once they notice interest in them. This one, however, seemed to pose for me for a bit. Got some other shots of it looking left, too, but the one looking right made for better composition. The reflection really makes the shot…as does the contrast of the ice and the open marsh.

Twice Bald

This one, to preserve the reflection, wants to be a square crop again. Looks great in a 15 x 15 on acrylic in a barnwood frame (for $175 + 5% shipping). You can see it displayed that way in the gallery in Ogden, UT. Other sizes and media are available, too. Email me at steve@emmisoure.com to order one for your wall.

Art of the Day: Boxing Day Bighorn

Don’t know if you’ve ever tried to photograph something when the snow is falling…big flakes…but if you have, you’ll recall that your camera’s autofocus is so good that it can find a single snowflake to focus on – and does.

SO…manual focus is the thing in the snow. This guy was hanging out at the top of a cliff with another male, a female, and a lamb. Neat looking group. They’re pretty shy so I didn’t get as close as I’d have liked to, but…that’s the way it is sometimes. He sure looks healthy – fat.

Notice a couple of things. First, he’s got some breakfast in his mouth. Second, note that the end of his horns don’t come to points. They look broken off. Unlike antlers, which the deer, elk, and moose shed every year, the sheep (and buffalo) have horns which continue to grow. As the bighorn’s horn grows and curls, it can wreck his peripheral vision. In order to account for that, he’ll grind off the tips of the horns on something hard (a rock usually). This is called “brooming” (for some reason). And this guy’s horns have been properly broomed.

Boxing Day Bighorn

This one wants to be a square crop only. You can get it in a handmade barnwood frame on 15″ x 15″ acrylic for $175 (plus five percent shipping). Email me at steve@emmisoure.com to place an order for this shot. Other sizes and media available, of course.

Art of the Day: Female Harrier in Flight

This might just be my favorite raptor to try to photograph. And until this day in January of 2021, a really good shot had eluded me. They’re very skittish and wary. Plus shooting birds in flight is just hard. It’s a technique that needs to be practiced. Last winter I spend days on end working on photographing birds in flight – practicing lots on seagulls – refining my technique. The seagulls were good for that because they’re so very common…and they don’t seem to have much problem flying close. And, as an aside, with wildlife photography, nothing can beat proximity. Sure, it’s easy to get a speck of a blur of a vulture circling overhead… But to get fine detail of the eyes or feathers, the closer you are, the better the shot.

The Northern Harriers (also known as Marsh Hawks to us older people), don’t think much of proximity to humans. I’ve got hundreds of shots of them from a distance…but very few as close as this one. They’re ground-nesters and seldom fly very high (compared to Red-tails, for example). You’ll often see them 20 or so feet off the ground, flying over farmland in search of rodents and other small prey. One of the places they like to hunt is along the sides of dirt roads. They’ll often fly along the side of a road…and in the case of this one, she was flying toward me (while I was in the car, stopped). I managed to acquire and keep focus as she approached, and this shot is when she was nearly parallel to me. The blue in the background is an iced-over marsh in the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. And she’s just gorgeous. Look at that eye!

Sometimes I’ll take a shot and wonder if the camera grabbed what I saw. Often, we’re not in sync. However as I fired this burst, I knew I’d succeeded. Couldn’t wait to get home to see it on the larger screen. And…it turned out to be the first of a number of good ones. That time with the gulls had been well spent.

Art of the Day: Twin Yearlings Sparring

These two are a lot of fun to watch. I think they’re both males from the same dam. They’re always together, running, playing, and sparring – much like you’d expect others to act. The picture was shot toward the end of the day on the shortest day of the year in 2020. The light was just starting to get “golden” as the sun was going down. Was my first time out with this herd, too, and it was a really special experience. Great interaction with the horses, great light, and great memories.

Art of the Day: Female Kestrel in Rime

This is really a super shot of the smallest falcon we have in North America. I saw her in a tree near an abandoned farmhouse from the road in the fog on a January morning. As I was approaching, the fog began to lift. (A bit of a side diversion, but if you’re shooting wildlife, there’s something about our eyes that makes them skittish – predator eyes? So if you keep your camera to your face and avoid staring them down, they’ll often let you approach closer than you otherwise might be able to.)

She sat for me for a bit as I took several shots – rime and pretty kestrel against the blue sky. The branches of the tree are fantastic, too – the way they curve and curl (thinking it’s a variety of willow tree).

This shot is cropped a little so I would suggest the largest size to maintain sharpness should be 24 x 36. She’s so pretty. To order, email me at steve@emmisoure.com

Art of the Day: Yucca Hummer

This isn’t really quite a yucca. It’s called a false yucca or a hummingbird yucca (Hesperaloe parviflora). Whatever the case, it looks like a yucca…but has been really reluctant to bloom. After five years, however, it sent up a bunch of bloom stalks in June and they persisted until the first, hard frost. Was really incredible and the bees, hummingbirds, and other pollinators just loved it. Really hope it has its blooming figured out and will be a fixture from now on.

This is a super pic of a female calliope hummingbird enjoying an early morning in August of last year. Hummingbirds are really, really tough to catch in flight because they just have no respect for progress or direction. X, Y, Z axes are all in play all the time – so there’s really no predicting where they’ll go. And they sure don’t hold still for very long. Ever. This is a great grab, though, and she’s gorgeous as is the not-yucca.

Yucca Hummer

Any art you see on this site, you can usually get on any media (traditional, matted prints, on metal, on acrylic, on canvas, on foamcore, etc.) in any size (locally, I can go up to five by ten feet on acrylic and at least that large on foamcore). Some shots I’ve needed to crop so on those, I’ll advise going too big for the sake of resolution. And just because I make suggestions here and have some links to click to buy doesn’t mean those are the only options for purchase. Generally, I’ll suggest sizes and media that I like. But don’t feel bounded by those suggestions. Email me at steve@emmisoure.com to discuss options that might work for your space.

This one looks really good on both metal and acrylic. I recommend 15×23 acrylic with 1″ standoffs ($188, shipped), or metal with a French cleat for hanging at 11×14 ($134, shipped), 16×24 ($349, shipped), or 20×30 ($509, shipped).

Art of the Day: ’56 Chevy Portrait

While the gallery is filled mostly with nature photography, I’ve noticed that I’ve been posting a much wider range than that…and can only think it’s to show the range of what’s really available.

Seems to me that every sub-type of photography is different. Landscapes are different from macros are different from candids are different from architecture, etc. And (to me again), no matter the technical skill with (and understanding of) the camera, there’s a learning curve associated with whatever subject (type) you’re shooting. And you have to find your eye.

That said, I wanted to learn to shoot cars. But, recall, I think I shoot portraiture, mostly. So…I see faces in cars. You might, too. And seems that each face has a personality. So in figuring out how to shoot cars – what my eye was, I naturally focused on the face – taking a portrait of the individual again. So here’s a result from my first outing. It’s a beautifully-restored ’56 Chevy Bel Air.

I shot it in June of 2020 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. No idea who the owner is. To get the shot, I was on my back nearly under the front bumper. I used a really wide lens (not quite fisheye, but you get a bit of a bulge in the center) 21mm and I think I caught the essence of the thing.

It’s a 2:3 ratio and is quite striking. As a sidenote, people who buy art at festivals seem to have a thing for triptychs. So I tried cutting this one into thirds and it came out really well. Really three distinct parts – headlights and hood ornament/branding in the middle. I’ve ordered it in three 24×48 panels on 1/4″ ultraboard (foamcore) and that monster (four feet by six feet plus the two gaps) will be on the west wall of the gallery soon.

I decided to try the thin ultraboard for this one because it’s really the best bang-for-the-buck-for-square-foot-of-art medium. And it really does look good. (And I’m a little over budget populating the gallery). I’ll post a pic of the trip when it gets delivered this week. That monster trip will sell for $630. (By comparison, for that price you get a metal print that’s 22 x 33). It’s a matter of budget and taste. Of course, it’s available in any size, in trip or whole. Had a 12×18 that sold within minutes of putting it in my booth ($195) and it’s in a man cave in Colorado now.

A color version is also available, but I prefer the black car in black and white. Email me at steve@emmisoure.com to purchase or discuss size and medium and pricing options. It’s really a bold piece.

Art of the Day: Four Corners Three

I’ve had a lot of fun this year photographing wild horses. Mustangs. Apparently they’re to be called “feral horses” now which I see as a precursor to getting them off the range. Words matter. That digression aside, I usually shoot the Onaqui herd in western central Utah. (For reference, the Juab/Tooele county line on the Pony Express Trail is a good place to start looking for that herd.) Recently I took a trip to see the herd on Pilot Butte near Green River, Wyoming. And this shot came from the four-corners area on the Navajo Reservation.

It’s a family unit. And apart from being pretty compelling in the composition and the focus, one of the things that jumps out at me is that the foal obviously belongs to the mother. The shadows and light kind of highlight the shape of their heads (cranial morphology). And the little one’s is just about identical to mom. And that’s pop there in the background. He was being pretty protective of his band, but I was glad to get him in this shot.

Four Corners Three

I have this one in the gallery on a 30 x 40 x 1/4″ acrylic (with a French cleat for hanging) for $875. It’s a pretty powerful piece. It also crops well to a 2:3 ratio, so it can be 16×24, 20×30, 24×36, 40×60, etc. There’s enough image there to BOOM a 40×60 print. Look forward to seeing it that big someday. Already wishing for more wall space…

If you’re interested in getting this one – from an 8×10 matted print ($30) to that big 40×60 BOOM ($2175 – on metal), send me an email at steve@emmisoure.com. And, of course, please come in and have a look at it yourself. A quick peek on the phone just doesn’t do this one justice.

Offer: 2022 Beefriends Calendar

As you might know, I post a new picture of a bee every day on bees.photo. And we’ve produced a calendar for the last few years. Here’s 2022’s. It’s a little late, but if you order soon, it should arrive for Christmas giving.

2022 Beefriends Calendar

The cost is $12 for a 5×7 calendar and $20 for an 8×10. Use the link below to buy using a credit card, Gpay, or Cashapp via Square. Or if you’d rather use Venmo (or another form of payment), email me at steve@emmisoure.com.

$12.00 or $20.00 Buy now