Chris Kayler Photography

Here’s another from my series of Great Falls Great Blue Herons. This is the same individual as in my post on June 16th, but this time he is even closer to the water in attempt to catch a fish. He didn’t succeed, as another heron came in and scared him off.

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Yup, it’s time for another Great Blue Heron photograph! This particular area is one of about 4 very popular fishing areas for the herons, and is often fought over. When this image was taken, the water was quite high and turbulent. By using a slow shutter speed, but still not extremely slow, I was able to capture the movement of the water while still retaining texture and being able to show the power of the rapids.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

I was up and about at 4am this morning, and made a sunrise photography trip to Great Falls. The sunrise was understated but still beautiful. Lots of whispy pink clouds. Here is a vertical of the main falls incorporating the skies. The water is still brown and way up compared to most of our years past (drought), but in this image I think the more powerful water works well, even if it’s kind of brown in color!

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

Here’s another one from Great Falls. With my new camera gear (Canon 50D + 400 f/5.6), I was finally able to get some decent flight shots with relative ease. In this image, I particularly like the look of the rapids in the background. When I head back to Great Falls next time, I hope to capture an image with a heron flying just over turbulent waters.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

This one isn’t too out of the ordinary like my recent two posts, especially considering how easy it is to get photographs such as this in places like Florida, but nevertheless it is my first succesful portrait of one of the herons at Great Falls. At least the background makes it slightly different from other heron portraits out there.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

This image was taken at Great Falls National Park the day after my previous image. I was lucky to finally get this image, as every time this heron would fly into this spot, another heron would come over and chase it away. After 4 attempts, he finally got to stay.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

Let’s take a little break from South Carolina! We have had tons of rain this year, and that has kept the water at Great Falls a brown, flooded mess. Discouraged by this, I hadn’t been visiting to photograph the Great Blue Herons like I had wanted to, and it was putting me in quite a photographic funk. However, I finally caved in and just went anyways yesterday afternoon. Turns out that wasn’t a bad idea, as I was able to get quite a few images, as well as a decent sunset. This particular image is of an adult Great Blue Heron in one of their prized fishing areas. The Herons caught 4 large Bullhead out of this area during the 3 hours that I was there. As the sun was dipping below the horizon, it lit up this guys upper body, as well as some of the surrounding water. I really liked the contrast between light and shadow, and luckily was able to capture this one image before the light fell below the horizon for good.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

While very common through much of the south, this Southern Toad was a first for me. The Southern Toad can be differentiated from the American Toad mainly by looking at the ridges on top of the head. A Southern Toad will have two pronounced ridges, while the American Toad will not.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

This little guy, the Little Grass Frog (Pseudacris ocularis), is the smallest of all North American species of frogs, reaching a maximum length of about 3/4 inches. When I arrived in Francis Marion National Forest after an extremely heavy rain, these guys were calling all over the place. That doesn’t mean it was easy to find one, however, they are excellent at remaining hidden! For this image, I had to use my telephoto lens combined with a closeup filter in order to get the required magnification to make the frog large enough in the frame for my tastes.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

I’ve still got some more from South Carolina, so continuing, here is an image of an adult Eastern Narrow-mouthed Toad. I managed to find two of these guys during my trip, and oddly enough, despite being a little ugly and oddly proportioned, these frogs (yes, they are frogs!) were some of my favorite finds. This individual, in particular, had quite a bit of blue speckling on his sides, which I definately liked.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

Compared to my last post, here is the Squirrel Treefrog. This particular individual was very green, so there was no real need to check the underlegs to determine if it was a Pine Woods Treefrog or a Squirrel Treefrog.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

You guessed it, some more photos from my trip to Francis Marion National Forest in South Carolina! This image is of an adult Pine Woods Treefrog. These medium sized treefrogs are relatively common in the Longleaf Pines, as well as other southern pines, of the southern Atlantic coastal plain. Their pattern primarily remains the same, though they can range in color from brown to gray. The Squirrel Treefrog (Hyla squirella), while usually green, can sometimes look extremely similar in appearance to the Pine Woods Treefrog, however, they can be told apart when viewing the interior of the rear legs; the Pine Woods Treefrog has small yellow, orange, or white spots, while the Squirrel Treefrog does not.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

The Plant stock gallery is now online.

It can be viewed here - http://www.chriskaylerphotography.com/plantstockphotographs.htm

The Dwarf Salamander, which is the second of two salamanders found during my South Carolina trip, is found primarily under logs and other debris near the edge of swamps and carolina bays filled with Cypress trees. I flipped many hundreds of these logs in the right habitat, but only found this one Dwarf Salamander. I’m very glad I did!

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

This beautiful little guy was found, again, in South Carolina near a Carolina Bay where, presumably, it was going to breed. I thought that the salamander looked really good on the dark, tannin stained leaves of the swamp.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

Continuing still with my South Carolina herping trip, here is a portrait of my favorite find of the trip. This is an adult Corn Snake, and it sure was brightly colored! Beautiful snake. It was found crossing the road as I was driving around one evening. It froze as it saw me, allowing me to set up my camera and obtain several portraits.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

Well, I came back from the Delaware Water Gap a bit early. I managed to get a few images, but overall the creative juices just weren’t flowing, and I decided to cut the trip short and head back in the same day so I could sleep in my nice bed and get some photography work done today!

Continuing with my herp images from Francis Marion National Forest, this is a Barking Treefrog. These guys are easily one of my favorite Treefrogs that I’ve been lucky enough to experience. Not only are they very big, but they have awesome patterns and colors, are very calm and docile, and just love to cling onto anything, so if you put them in your hand they will wrap their large sticky footpads around your fingers and just hang out. Very cool experience!

As far as the image goes - it was a set up! Just as in many bird photographs, this branch was specifically selected for its characteristics, and was then moved around often in order to obtain the background that I wanted.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

This will be the first of many species from my very successful trip to South Carolina. I managed to get poision ivy, get lost in a swamp for 4 hours at night, and get eaten alive by bugs, but it was a ton of fun being out there alone for a full week straight. I photographed 14 new reptile / amphibian species in total!

This particular image is one of my favorites from the trip, and also what I consider to be one of my only artistic looking photographs of a herp. Most of that latter attribute was thanks to being in the right spot at the right time and the luck of having the Green Anole selecting a very good Palmetto perch with the colorful, dappled waters of a swamp directly behind him.

I’ll be heading to the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area in Pennsylvania to photograph a multitude of waterfalls in the predicted rainy weather tomorrow and Thursday, but will be back to posting more images shortly after.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

I photographed this beautiful little guy at a local State Forest near me in a small pool of water. There were several of them there, and most likely they will be breeding soon.

On a similar subject of reptiles and amphibians, I will be heading down to South Carolina tomorrow to look for and photograph snakes / frogs / salamanders / turtles etc. I will return Friday or Saturday and will hopefully have many new images to share.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com

All of my new camera gear is here! It’s been a joy to use - a real upgrade over my past equipment. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise?

This image is from a trip to the New River Gorge area of West Virginia on a nice misty day. This particular waterfall is Cathedral Falls, and was easily my favorite of the entire trip. Very photogenic! The conditions under which I photographed it were also ideal with the high flow of water and fresh spring greens.

To order this print or purchase stock rights please contact me. To view additional photos for sale please visit my website at www.chriskaylerphotography.com