It has been over three years since my last post. I cannot believe it has been so long. The last three years were probably the toughest years of my life. I lost my grandfather, my aunt, and my father in less than two years, all which took a toll on me. None harder than the loss of my father. It was so sudden and unexpected that it really crushed me. After his passing, I realized how little time I spent with him doing his true passion, woodworking. So, I guess to help cope with my father's loss I spent a lot of my free time in his wood shop doing everything that he enjoyed doing.
Looking back at my life, I realized how much influence my father had on me. Almost everything I enjoyed doing I learned from him, and we always did them together. Since I was a child I remember getting my first Minolta film camera, and the two of us would go out and photograph wildlife together. For probably 20 years or so, we were always going together to take photographs. I guess without him I didn't have the drive to go out alone. Also, with my new full time job, I didn't have the free time that I had before. I believe that I had gotten used to staying home, when I was not working, and finding more things to do around the house.
Just before my father passed away, I had started growing some bonsai trees from seeds. I had also bought some pre bonsai to work on. I thought it would be something that I would enjoy doing. Over the last two years, I have learned a lot about bonsai care, but I still have a lot to learn. I have really enjoyed spending the time outside and enjoyed the process of bonsai. Now, I have approximately two dozen different trees, in a large variety of species. None of which I would consider bonsai at this point, but they are a work in progress. After some reflection about the past few years of my life, I realized that maybe this was my way of coping with the losses. Either way, I have enjoyed working on my trees, and I don't see myself stopping anytime soon. I have started a lot of seeds over this winter, and I am waiting to see if they will sprout.
From spending all the extra time outside caring for my bonsai trees, I realized how much I was missing being out in nature. So, I charged up my camera batteries for the first time in over a year last fall and finally took a trip out to the local reservoir. I saw some bald eagle's fishing, some geese, and ducks, and some other small bird species. However, I did not get any pictures. I was focusing more on macro photography at the time. I wanted to photograph insects because I was seeing much more insects than anything else. I did manage to get a couple of photographs of dragonflies and frogs. I also photographed a lot of flowers and other subjects just to have something to photograph. I did get some good shots, but it simply felt good to be back out taking pictures.
Since my trips in the fall, I did take some other trips out during the winter. I just didn't post anything about them. I plan on sharing some photographs from those trips soon. I also recently took a trip out to the Bashakill Wildlife Management Area. I will post more about that as well. Soon, I will also be taking a trip to Alaska for the first time. I am so excited to finally get to visit Alaska. I have been wanting to go there since I was a child. I've been preparing for the trip, and I purchased a new camera lens. The sigma 150–600 mm contemporary lens. So far, I really like it. I have not had much time to test it out, but it is a vast improvement over my last lenses. I look forward to getting more opportunities to use it. I am also thinking about getting a new camera body for my trip. I will keep you posted on that once I decide what I am going to purchase. I am also looking to buy some other accessories. As I purchase the equipment, I will probably post about it.
For this post, I decided to include some photographs taken since my last post. As a reminder all the images posted on my blog have been reduced in size for storage purposes. I hope you all enjoy them. Until next time.
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