My photography tends to vacillate greatly between very planned photography where I have a subject and location that I will be photographing to basically what I would call adventure photography. Adventure photography is more like I get out in nature and enjoy myself and photograph whatever strikes me creatively or inspires me. Maybe I am exploring a new place and I want to be open to all possibilities.

One thing I try to do is to be open to opportunities that may arise unexpectedly. My photography occurs outside so even when I have a plan for my photography there is a lot that is beyond my control and I try to be open to it and ready to take advantage of it.

Recently I was working to create images for an athlete. We were working at a local park. When we were done I wanted to look around and see if anything else interesting was going on. Would there be any other subjects I could capture.

The park was by the water so I wanted to see if there were any birds around to photograph. There were a few cormorants around but not in a place I could create nice images.

Then I saw a flash of movement in a small tree along the shore. There was a Pileated Woodpecker moving along the shore from tree to tree. I decided to slowly follow it and see if it would sit still long enough for me to take some photographs.

I was very fortunate that the woodpecker did stop just long enough for me to create a few images of it perched on a tree.

If I had simply left immediately after completing the project I had gone there to work on I would never have had this opportunity. Keeping an open mind and exploring a little allowed me to extend my creativity in different ways on one trip and enjoy a nice opportunity I wouldn’t have otherwise had.

See more of my bird photography at my birds collection.