Most of us have ‘themes” for our photos. Again and again we focus our cameras on the same subjects. Maybe it’s our children, or family get-togethers, landscapes, or vacations snaps… We often fall into a groove and only bring out the camera for those occasions. What a hard time we have yanking ourselves out of our comfortable routines to concentrate on something totally different. So it goes with us. We love to photograph landscapes, birds, and flowers, but, every once in awhile, we do find other subjects so compelling that even we can’t resist.

Florida 2013: We discovered a very small tree frog in a power box at our camp site in a state park.

Gressoney St. John, Italy 1986: Sheep blocked our way forward on the hiking trail.

Santa Elena, Costa Rica, 2006: A coati appeared unexpectedly when our backs were turned, looking up watching for birds.

Kos, Greece, 2012: Who is that sunning itself on a rock?

Great Falls National Park, Virginia, 2011: Clearly the log was not long enough.

Parque Nacional de Picos de Europa, Spain, 2010: The goats in Cares Gorge make clear that they are the park residents and visiting hikers need to step around.
The advantages of focusing your camera on non-human subjects are that they’re usually cute, not concerned about privacy, aren’t self-conscious, and won’t object. No mugging for the camera to worry about!
We’ll try in the future to be more creative with our photography. Now that we use digital cameras, why limit ourselves?
March 2016
Turtles somehow always pull my heartstrings. Photos, whatever you aim the lens at, add to stories so wonderfully (unless, like me, you are still battling a crazy war with blur) 😉
What a wonderful collection, particularly enjoyed the turtles! I think the goat might have been mugging…