Chris Kayler Photography

So, as luck would have it, I went out to Great Falls again yesterday, with the intention of photographing sunset, but instead having a ton of luck with the Great Blue Herons. I can’t complain! Instead of heading to their roosts like during my previous visit, the herons stayed out in the river fishing until after sunset. In this image, one of the Great Blue Herons is standing on a rock in front of a nice 20 ft+ waterfall, defending his space against another Great Blue Heron that had just flew in. In my typical favorite fashion of photographing the herons, I used a slow shutter speed to capture the water blurring by as they remain motionless.

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

Yesterday afternoon I decided to take a trip to my lovely little local spot, Great Falls National Park, Virginia. The day was completely sunny and cloudless, so I went with the intention of photograph the group of Great Blue Herons that hang out hunting for fish among the rapids. As it would turn out, the herons stopped hunting at around 6:00PM and went to go roost for the night in trees along the banks. With my plan for photographing the Great Blue Herons ruined, I decided to change gears and shoot some abstract images of the various rapids. With the rapids in shade, and the sun still shining brightly on the cliff opposite of my position, the water picked up hints of orange and yellow in its reflection. Tied in with the reflection of the blue sky overhead, I found the overall color scheme very pleasing. Often times, photographing abstracts in less than perfect conditions (for other types of photography) saves the day and enables me to come home with some great images.

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 is a bit different for me. It was taken the same morning as my other sunrise image from Blackrock Summit, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. The original inspiration for the photograph was the extreme side lighting showing the contours of the mountain ridges and the rough texture of the foreground rocks. I later decided to simplify things and convert the image to black and white. I won’t say much more than that so as not to influence your opinion; but I would love people to stop in and comment. Tell me if you like it overall, and what you like or don’t like about it. Thanks!

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

To follow up my previous post, this is a photograph from the same day and general location, but during sunset instead of sunrise. The great part about sunset was that good amounts of clouds formed over the mountains during the course of the day, adding some interest to the sky. Generally, some nice clouds in the sky are preferable, but in this case I like the previous sunrise image more. I’ve said it before, but all these infinitely variable conditions really keep nature photography interesting and exciting for me.

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 image from my trip to Shenandoah National Park, Virginia. This particular image is during Sunrise at Blackrock Summit. Of the many summits I’ve visited in Shenandoah, I consider Blackrock to be the most photogenic. I love the interesting foregrounds as well as the layered, receding, blue ridge mountains. The sky this morning was rather bland, with no clouds in sight. To overcome this, I used to rising sun as a point of interest in the sky. Many photographers find “sun stars” too cliche, but I find them beautiful. Heck, if people without cameras enjoy watching the actual sun rising above the earth, it can’t be a bad thing to include in photographs.

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

To make up for my previous post of a scary snake, here is the complete opposite - an innocent White-tailed Deer fawn smelling the flowers in big meadows, Shenandoah National Park. I had less than a second to capture this pose, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. I usually strive to maintain a clean look to my images, but in this case I think the emotion and cuteness really outweigh everything else.

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 been making day trips here and there since my last post, but have largely been unsuccessful at photographing anything well lately. That all changed yesterday with a day long trip to Shenandoah National Park. Alarm set to 1:50 AM, I made the drive to the southern portion of Skyline Drive, walking out in complete darkness to what I consider the most scenic overlook in the park, Blackrock Summit. The cool mountain air and dawn colors were just what I needed to snap me out of my photographic funk. After photographing the sunrise, I continued exploring the park. During the course of the day, perhaps my most eventful of any Shenandoah trip yet, I ended up photographing grand mountain landscapes, White-tailed Deer fawns, birds, a Black Bear (in horrible, harsh light - but an awesome experience regardless), and this mean-looking little guy, a Copperhead. Found under a rock, this was my first real attempt at photographing a copperhead, and only my second time seeing one in the wild. While venomous and accompanied with a bad reputation, I find copperheads to be one of the most beautiful snakes. If you simply keep a safe distance, copperheads will not strike unless provoked. After ending the day with a beautiful sunset, I traveled back home for some well needed sleep after 22 hours of being awake. Many people don’t realize the hours of dedication required from a nature photographer - certainly more than most people with “normal” careers. However, we can sure have a lot of fun putting in all those hours!

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 is another image from my short trip to Upstate New York last weekend. This Green Frog was perhaps the greatest looking Green Frog I have ever come across. The dark mottled markings were truly unique. For me, one of the greatest aspects of nature photography is that the subjects never get old. Even if you’ve photographed a certain species before, you can always photograph an individual in a new style or location, or (as in this case) photograph various individuals with different markings.

As a bit of side trivia, you can tell that this Green Frog is a female by the size of her tympanum (ear membrane). In females, it is roughly the same size as the eye, and in males it is about double the size of the eye.

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 apologize, yet again, for my lack of posts lately. I haven’t photographed since arriving home from New York last week. I just haven’t felt motivated to get out and shoot lately … hopefully I can get back in the swing of things soon. For now, I will be posting some of my images from New York.

Today’s particular image is of a Gray Treefrog. Many of the treefrogs I found in New York were quite different than any I’ve found previously down here in Virginia. They were very green! Wanting to take advantage of this newfound “color phase”, I took many images of them in various locations and poses. This photograph is one of my favorites from the sessions.

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, whoops, looks like I missed my deadline of Thursday. I arrived home late due to bad traffic, and ended up being pretty busy yesterday. Anyways, this is an image of a Cecropia Moth, found in Upstate New York at my good friend Eric Dresser’s house. We placed the moth on these ferns and were able to obtain a few images of him before he warmed up and became uncooperative. The Cecropia Moth is a large species of moth, and certainly among the most beautiful found on the East coast.

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

Over the past few nights I’ve been going out road cruising for Gray Treefrogs in my area, capturing them, and photographing/releasing in the morning. No harm comes to the frogs, and it’s a great way to photograph them in daylight instead of at night when they are more easily found. The Gray Treefrog is split into two physically indistinguishable species, the Gray Treefrog (Hyla versicolor), and the Cope’s Gray Treefrog (Hyla chrysoscelis). Differing genetically, the only practical way to tell the difference between the two is by their calls. The Cope’s Gray Treefrog has a faster pitched call when compared to a Gray Treefrog. After locating some calling Cope’s Gray Treefrogs in a small ditch next to the road, I went down with a flashlight and searched for them. After 15 minutes of searching, I managed to find one calling from deep under grass. The following photograph is from the following day, where I was able to select a picturesque perch to place him on.

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

Two afternoons ago, I decided it was time for a long overdue visit to Great Falls National Park. Despite the thunderstorms rolling through the area, I went in hopes of capturing some images of the resident Great Blue Herons in rain, and eventually hoping to capture the sunset as the storms moved out. I wasn’t able to get many photographs of the Great Blue Herons as they were being unusually uncooperative, but the storms did begin to move out of the area about a half an hour before sunset. A clear horizon to the West and storm clouds to the East provided an awesome light show! Despite the excellent sunset color, this was the only image I took that I really like. The water at Great Falls is running very high, and drought conditions are actually preferable there as it reveals more interesting foreground rocks.

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’ll start off my series of photographs from my trip to north/central Pennsylvania with a Northern Redbelly Snake. While generally considered a common snake, this Northern Redbelly was the first of its kind that I have had the opportunity to see. The Redbelly Snake is a small snake, with an average length of 7 to 10 inches, that spends much of its time under rocks, logs, and other debris on wooded slopes and ridges. The color of the Redbelly Snake is highly variable, with some having a brown top, while others are gray. The belly of the Redbelly Snake is, understandably, red. In this image I flipped the snake over in order to better show its defining characteristic.

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

In an attempt to get away from the herp pictures for just a bit, this is an image I took while in Shenandoah National Park, Virginia a few weeks ago. In the higher elevations of the park, the dogwood trees were still in bloom, and the fresh spring foliage shown in bright shades of green. Additionally, it was a cloudy, rainy day, and the clouds settled onto the tops of the mountains like fog. These picturesque conditions were just about perfect, except for the fact that they were accompanied by strong winds. To combat the wind in an attempt to obtain a sharp picture, I used a slightly higher shutter speed than normal by using a wider aperture and higher ISO. The resulting image is sharp and looks flawless technically. While the gut reaction of landscape photography is usually to use the lowest ISO and a small aperture, don’t be afraid to push your camera in an attempt to capture the image as you believe it should appear.

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 apologize for the lapse in posting. My extended weekend was spent in north-central Pennsylvania at a friend’s cabin with a bunch of herpers. It was a ton of fun hanging out by the campfire, as well as heading out into the field to find reptiles and amphibians - new and old species alike. I managed to take some photographs, but most of the time was spent “speed herping” with the guys and not on obtaining new images. Until I’m ready to post some of the photographs from my Pennsylvania trip, this image is from a week earlier in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. The subject of the photograph is the Pine Barrens Treefrog. The Pine Barrens Treefrog is a small, colorful treefrog found only in a few bogs of the New Jersey Pine Barrens and a few scattered southern populations. These treefrogs begin calling around dusk and can be extremely hard to pinpoint based on their voice. However, with the help of Kari, we managed to find this individual and photograph him. Using full flash at night, I was able to handhold my camera for easier maneuverability in the cramped forest conditions and obtain several nice images of this species.

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

As mentioned in my previous post, Kari and I went on a herping trip to the Delaware Water Gap NRA a few days ago. The Longtail Salamander was a target species, and with the help of our friend Jeff, easily found. These large, beautiful salamanders are a species that I had been hoping to find ever since beginning my search for reptiles and amphibians. While they do occur in Virginia, it seems I needed to head up north to find one of their strongholds.

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

Kari and I went on a day trip two days ago to meet up with some herpers in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. The weather was absolutely horrible for reptiles and amphibians - cold and rainy - but we gave it a go anyways. Despite the weather, the day turned out to be great. Species found included Long-tailed Salamander, Black Racer, Northern Ringneck Snake, Northern Slimy Salamander, Northern Redback Salamander, Northern Two-lined Salamander, Spring Peeper, and this beauty, an adult Eastern Milk Snake. Strikingly patterned and relatively rare, these guys are surely among my favorite snakes.

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

Due to high winds, rain, and cold temperatures, I’ve decided to postpone my planned West Virginia trip. Instead, I am spending some time in New Jersey with my girlfriend Kari until we head out to Pennsylvania next weekend to meet up with some herping friends (people who study reptiles/amphibians). Yesterday, we made a day trip out to the New Jersey Pine Barrens to meet up with a friend to try and find some some herps. It ended up being an awesome day, with 4 new species of herps photographed. This salamander, a Northern Red, was found near the end of a day. After searching intently in seemingly great Northern Red Salamander habitat for months, I had finally succeeded in finding this species in the most unlikely location, under a pile of cement! No problem, I’ll take what I can get.

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

On the same morning as my previous post, before traveling to Shenandoah National Park, I also photographed some Gray Tree Frogs that I had captured the night before. Gray Tree Frogs, like chameleons, have the capability to change colors (albeit more slowly). This guy changed from the normal gray appearance to a brown color, and matched up perfectly with the dark brown bark of this tree.

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

A bit of news today before this post. I was out looking for snakes under rocks today, and one fell on my finger and then proceeded to slip off, giving me a nasty wound and a broken finger. After 6 hours in the E.R., I’m finally home and able (barely, attempting to type with this finger brace is beyond annoying) to post some of my recent results here on my blog. Now, onto the good stuff.

This image is from a rainy 6 mile loop hike down Doyles River and up Jones Run in Shenandoah National Park. It was a tough hike, but the high water levels and new spring growth made it more than worth my time. This particular photograph is of a small, but beautiful cascade a few hundred feet downstream from Doyles River Falls. I had to stand thigh-deep in the creek to get this perspective, and think it was worth it. Many times, a nature photographer has got to get dirty to get the shot!

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