Chris Kayler Photography

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

Not wanting to go for long periods of time without posting, I wanted to give you all a bit of an update about my absence. I’m currently in upstate New York visiting my grandparents and cousins without my computer to process images. I have gotten some great images, but mostly this has been about relaxing with family. I’ll be back in Virginia Thursday afternoon and expect to be processing and posting some new images by then. Thanks for the patience, and take care!

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

A good friend of mine recently found a Red Fox den in Delaware, and invited me up to photograph the babies. Wow, how cute they were. In this photograph two of the youngest kits are playing with each other right outside the entrance of their den. I just love photographing baby animals, and these Red Fox kits are certainly among the cutest!

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 species for the first time a couple of days ago at a park in the southern Piedmont of Virginia. Pictures, mine included, just don’t do these guys justice. They are large and strikingly beautiful in person. Unfortunately, they are just about impossible to photograph! I found 7 of them before I managed to get some pictures. Upon lifting a rock where one is hiding, they will flip and flop like crazy until they land in the stream, gone forever (to me). The Three-lined Salamander in this photograph actually let me photograph him as I removed the rock. I would have preferred a different setting, but as soon as I touched him he did the same routine as all his previous buddies. I’ll definitely have to get back there to get some more images of this awesome salamander.

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 is a couple weeks old, but one that I have yet to post on my blog. It is from a trip to a local nature preserve here in Virginia, and this individual was the first of this species that I had ever found. The slimy salamander is a large, and well, slimy, salamander. In this photograph, I liked the way the lichens on the rock echoed the spots on his skin.

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 I decided to take a little trip up to Maryland to explore Catoctin Mountain/Cunningham Falls State Park. I spent a few years of my childhood growing up just miles from the park, and visited regularly. Considering I was just a little boy the last time I had visited, it seems I had forgotten how beautiful it was there. I found myself engrossed in the sounds of the bubbling creeks and the sights of the large hemlock trees. Photographic opportunities existed around every corner. This particular image is of Big Hunting Creek, one of the larger creeks that drains the area. In the lower elevations this section of the creek is particular turbulent and photogenic.

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 photograph from my trip to Thompson Wildlife Management Area, Virginia several days ago. The fog was outstanding and this flowering dogwood was the perfect compliment to it. I had to wait around a bit as the fog was constantly changing from very dense fog to light fog. In this image, the foreground is less foggy than the background, thanks to the movement of the fog.

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

During my trip to Thompson Wildlife Management Area yesterday, I came across this little guy walking across the Appalachian Trail. I grabbed him for a quick photo shoot and got many images in different settings. Just 2 days before finding this Newt, I was talking with a friend about how I needed to get some whole body shots of newts (I only had portraits). Funny how things work out! Now … I could really use some pictures of Black Bears.

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

With the unexpected surprise of a low cloud base (600 ft above ground level), I decided to head out to the mountains to make my way up to higher elevations for some dense fog photography. The timing turned out to be perfect, as the Large-flowered Trilliums at Thompson Wildlife Management Area are in peak bloom, carpeting the forest floor. The bloom at Thompson WMA is thought to be the largest bloom of Large-flowered Trillium in the United States, with literally millions of flowers spouting to life during mid-Spring. While this event is amazing in person, it can be difficult to photograph due to the scraggly, dense underbrush throughout the woods. Thanks to the fog, the forest was simplified slightly and I was able to get several images that I like.

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