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Green Ribbon Meeting – Thursday, May 22

First-time attendee? Learn the ropes and meet other new faces before conference kicks off. Join our conference coordinator and program chair as they go through the can’t-miss events of conference and even get paired with a mentor to guide you throughout conference.

Brown Bag Discussion Lunch – Friday, May 23

Take in a documentary or chat up an expert over lunch. Discussions cover local and national issues, including conservation and outdoor news, as well as general interest topics. Have a topic you would like to see covered? Let us know!

EIC Awards Party – Saturday, May 24

You’re invited to the new EIC Awards Party! No more sitting through long lists of winning entries. This year, the EIC Awards will be a lively audio-visual showcase of the best in outdoor writing, photography, television, radio and Internet. After the awards dinner and show, we’ll celebrate with the country’s top outdoor communicators with live music and a fun-filled evening! Don’t forget to submit your EIC entries by Feb. 1 for your chance to win!

Photo Scavenger Hunt Critique – Sunday, May 25

Win cash and prizes from behind the lens. All attending members are encouraged to enter this fun contest — photographers submit just one frame of each of the five required subjects, forcing them to “get it right” on a tight deadline. Join us as the on-the-spot, creative subject matter is presented, photos are critiqued and winners are announced.

Honorary Awards Banquet – Sunday, May 25

Close conference with a bang as we recognize the incredible achievements and commitment of our members. From devoted past service to the organization to continued excellent in craft or outstanding Board service, these awards  represent the highest honors of OWAA.
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A Passion for Grouse

Edited by Thomas R. Pero
Wild River Press, 425-486-3638, P.O. Box 13360, Mill Creek, WA, 98082, Contact: Thomas Pero, tom@wildriverpress.com, wildriverpress.com; hardcover, 560 pp.; $100.
At more than 560 pages, “A Passion for Grouse” is not only the biggest book about hunting ruffed grouse ever published; it is also the most impressive in at least a generation. The book blends wildlife and hunting photography with contemporary writing, interviews with hunting legends and literary tributes to iconic grouse writers, plus dozens of favorite recipes for ruffled grouse from all the contributors. “A Passion for Grouse” is lavishly illustrated with hundreds of spectacular color photographs that bring the book to life.

Get Your Kids Hiking: How to Start Them Young and Keep It Fun!

By Jeff Alt
Beaufort Books, 27 W. 20th St., Suite 1106, New York, N.Y., 10011; 212-727-0222, ext. 113, Contact: Cindy Peng, cindy@midpointtrade.com; www.jeffalt.com; paperback, 240 pp.; $13.95.
This comprehensive and fun guide shows parents how to get even the most reluctant child excited about outdoor exercise and exploration from a young age. The book includes everything you need to know to hit the trail with kids, from gear suggestions to safety techniques, to kid-friendly outdoor meal ideas. Jeff Alt is a hiking expert, accomplished writer and speaker, who is also the father of two enthusiastic young hikers.

Gun Trader’s Guide, 35th Edition: A Comprehensive, Fully Illustrated Guide to Modern Firearms with Current Market Values

Edited by Stephen D. Carpenteri
Skyhorse Publishing, 307 W. 36th St., 11th Floor, New York, N.Y. ,10018; 212-643-6816, Contact: Oleg Lyubner, olyubner@skyhorsepublishing.com, www.skyhorsepublishing.com; paperback and e-book, 597 pp.; $29.95.
For more than half a century, this guide has served as the standard reference for gun collectors, curators, dealers and shooters. Included are extensive listings for handguns, shotguns and rifles from some of the most popular manufacturers, from Beretta to Colt to Winchester. This book offers the ultimate guide to purchasing classic or discontinued firearms, as well as for determining prices for any firearm you wish to sell or trade.

Shooter’s Bible, 105th Edition

Edited by Jay Cassell
Skyhorse Publishing, 307 W. 36th St., 11th Floor, New York, N.Y., 10018; 212-643-6816, Contact: Oleg Lyubner, olyubner@skyhorsepublishing.com, www.skyhorsepublishing.com; paperback and e-book, 600 pp.; $29.95.
For nearly 90 years, the “Shooter’s Bible” has been the most comprehensive reference guide to firearms and their specifications. Covering every firearms manufacturer in the world, the 105th edition contains new and existing product  sections on ammunition, optics and accessories, plus up-to-date handgun and rifle ballistics tables. This latest version includes coverage on the 50th anniversary of the Remington Model 110 and the 140th anniversary of the Winchester Model 1873.

Trolling Big-Water Walleyes: Secrets of the Great Lakes Fishing Guides, Charter Captains and Walleye Pros

By W.H. Chip Gross
Kent State University Press, 118 Library, P.O. Box 5190, Kent, Ohio, 44242, Contact: Susan Cash, scash@kent.edu, www.kentstateuniversitypress.com; paperback, 128 pp.; $29.25.
On big, open water like the Great Lakes, sprawling reservoirs, and large North American rivers, trolling puts more walleyes in the boat per hour than any other fishing method. Why? Because if done correctly, the lure or bait is always in the fish’s strike zone. In this detailed instructional guide, illustrated with more than 50 color photos and complemented by time-tested fish-catching secrets from experts, fishermen will learn to catch walleyes from those who chase this highly prized sport fish for a living.

Wild Steelhead – The Lure and Lore of a Pacific Northwest Icon

By Sean M. Gallagher
Wild River Press, 425-486-3638, P.O. Box 13360, Mill Creek, WA, 98082, Contact: Thomas Pero, tom@wildriverpress.com, wildriverpress.com; two volumes hardcover, 673 pp.; $150.
During the 1960s, when Sean Gallagher — now a retired school teacher — was 16, his mother took him fishing for steelhead on the Skagit River in Washington. She hired a guide who, when the boat of a competing guide came around
the bend, reached for a pistol and blasted it in the direction of the intruder. This, and other tales, are told in this two-volume slipcased set illustrated with more than 1,000 photographs.
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New Members

Born in the heart of New York, Bob Amendola grew up in the South Bronx. He first developed his interest in writing at a school that Hollywood portrayed as the toughest school in the country in the movie, “The Blackboard Jungle.” Attending Pace University for a year, Amendola taught martial arts after receiving his second black belt, formed the Pace Athletic Club and edited the college newspaper. Serving in the U.S. Army as a Green Beret “A Team Member,” Amendola refused a medical discharge after being wounded in Vietnam and went on to teach STS members precision archery upon joining the U.S. Air Force. After leaving government service with two honorable discharges, Amendola settled in Southeast Missouri and just published his first book, “Today’s Deer Hunting Handbook, The Complete Illustrated Guide for New and Experienced Hunters,” and is currently working on his next book. Amendola is an archery
expert, professional hunter, lecturer and writer and can be reached by his website, www.bobamendola.com.
Writer and ecologist Kirk Mantay was born and raised near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay in southeastern Virginia. An angler since age 5 and a hunter since age 17, Mantay relentlessly pursued greater knowledge and understanding of the American outdoors. He holds a master’s degree in environmental planning from Appalachian State University, and bachelor’s degrees in wildlife management and geography from Virginia Tech. Mantay wrote his first conservation press release as a wildlife technician in 1997, and writes regularly as a nonprofit conservation manager and college professor in Annapolis, Md. His outdoor-focused blog, “River Mud,” has been online since 2007, and features more than 600 posts on topics as diverse as waterfowl hunting, children in the outdoors, and urban gardening.
Trampas Swanson is originally from eastern North Carolina, where he served as a deputy sheriff and in a SWAT sniper unit. Swanson and his photographer wife Candace relocated to Jacksonville, Fla., in 2011, where he now works as a gunsmith, shooting instructor and writer, reviewing firearms, gear and ammo for magazines and websites. As a long-time hunter, like his father and grandfather, Trampas includes a lot of personal experiences in his writing, combining humor, history and family values. Being married to a chapter leader for The Well Armed Woman organization, Trampas spends a lot of his free time helping his wife educate and empower women in the shooting sports world through safety and marksmanship programs.
Steve Zakur lives and fishes in western Connecticut. Zakur writes about fly-fishing and related matters at sippingemergers.com and in short-form on Twitter. You can also find his essays and short-fiction in The Drake, The Flyfish Journal and the upcoming volume of Pulp Fly. Zakur is a recovering trout snob, whose mind has been poisoned by steelhead, stripers and kvichak rainbows, not to mention largemouth, smallmouth and bluegills. When not fishing he’s usually writing about the people, places and sport of fishing. He’s the spouse of the lovely, intelligent, and tolerant Ann, the father of two above-average boys and an executive for a large technology company during his spare time.
Rod Hamilton was raised in Beaverton, Ore., where his passion for fly-fishing began at the age of 12. After graduating from Oregon State University with a bachelor of science degree, he moved to British Columbia in 1976, ultimately creating and operating companies nationally recognized in the financial services industry. “Retired,” he is now able to focus his energies traveling and writing about his obsession with catching bonefish, permit and tarpon on the fly. His love for fly-fishing has led to a website, various magazine articles and the soon to be published book, “Do It Yourself Bonefishing.” Residing in Vancouver for 30 years, he and his wife recently moved to Vancouver Island, British Columbia where the pace may be a little slower, but is significantly closer to fly-fishing’s summer quarry of trout, salmon and steelhead.
Twenty years ago Richard Minich began a quest to catch the great musky. After accomplishing that goal, he still fishes and has interesting results — he recently caught a rare blue walleye. He has written three non-fiction books about musky fishing, available at www.richardminich.com. Switching to fiction, Minich created Joe Gaspe, a wild musky fisherman who knows everybody. He contracted Joe to the Department of Homeland Security. Chafing under the supervision of Radleigh Loonch, a young female intern, Joe and his eclectic network prevent bombings, rescue enslaved women, and save New York state in three novels: “Fireships and Brimstone,” “Girls Before Swine” and “Dread Upon the Waters.” Two newer books, “The Sollie Drake Story: Unsurpassed Among Men,” a fictional biography of the greatest musky guide in Wisconsin, and “Vengeance is Thine,” the fourth Joe Gaspe book, are featured in serial form on his website, www.richardminichwriter.com.
Bryce Bekar was born and raised in Canada’s arctic. Bekard was born in Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories of Canada and raised in “The Polar Bear Capital of the World” — Churchill, Manitoba, which presented many opportunities for outdoor adventures that are sometimes beyond belief. Being a lifetime Northerner has given Bekar the freedom to hunt, fish and spend time in a place people pay tens of thousands of dollars to visit. Bekar started hunting when he was 5 years old and is raising his daughters with the same love of the outdoors. They enjoy most activities as a family in the Yukon now, and represent a dwindling breed of people that feel it is more important than ever to get our children involved with the outdoors.
After nearly 10 years in the world of Fortune 500 corporate America, a lifelong passion for wildlife conservation finally brought Lynda Lambert to the Arizona Game and Fish Department where she swears she could not have written a more perfect job description for herself. She serves as the public information officer responsible for promoting endangered species conservation, wildlife research, safe wildlife-human interactions and nearly all other public relations involving nongame wildlife species. Raised in Michigan, she has been writing about the great species of the Southwest since 2006. She has a bachelor’s degree in natural resource management and a master’s degree in risk communication from Michigan State University that comes in handy during her work with endangered species and negative wildlife-human encounters. Married to an avid fly-fisherman, she and her husband enjoy living the motto “get outdoors” with their two young children and are always searching for their next outdoor learning adventure.
Judith Kohler is the public lands communications manager for the National Wildlife Federation based in Boulder, Colo. She is also part of the communications team for Sportsmen for Responsible Energy Development, a coalition led by National Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. Before joining the National Wildlife Federation in August 2011, Kohler was a reporter with The Associated Press for 21 years in Colorado and Wyoming, where she covered politics, energy and the environment. She wrote about the lead-up to the restoration of the gray wolf to the Northern Rockies; grazing reforms on public lands; the natural gas boom in western Colorado; sportsmen’s concerns about energy development; and the restoration of lynx to Colorado. Before that, she was a reporter and editor on weekly and daily newspapers in Colorado and Nebraska. The Deadwood, S.D., native earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Marie Majarov, a freelance photographer, writer and Virginia master naturalist, lives in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley on the edge of a historic woodland. There, she and her husband enjoy nature — especially gardening with native plants for butterflies and other pollinators, birding, hawk watching, and fishing when time permits. She’s passionate about lecturing and writing to increase awareness of the plight of the monarch butterfly, facilitated by her knowledge and appreciation of monarch biology and her in-depth photography of this majestic creature. Majarov studied with acclaimed photographers, biologists and naturalists Rob and Ann Simpson. Her features and photographs are seen regularly in Virginia Wildlife Magazine and have appeared in Zoogoer, a Smithsonian publication, BlueRidge Country, Hobby Farms’ Beekeeping, and various regional publications. Majarov is president of the Virginia Outdoor Writers Association and on the board of directors for the Mason Dixon Outdoor Writers Association.
Whitney Clark graduated from Virginia Tech in May 2013 with a degree in natural resource conservation and a minor in forestry. After graduation, she moved to Berkeley, Calif., to pursue a career in environmental resource conservation
in the Bay Area. She loves exploring the natural world around her through traveling, hiking, camping and especially wildlife watching as she’s always enjoyed being around animals. One of her favorite things is sharing her excitement about the outdoors with those around her by telling stories of all her adventures. Besides that, she enjoys reading, fishing, gardening, walking dogs, and is an avid NFL football fan.
Michael Hamilton is as passionate about writing and voice acting as he is about fly-fishing. He’s been doing all for more than 30 years. He frequently publishes in print and online for national and international fly-fishing, lifestyle and travel magazines. He is an active member of the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association. Prior to careers in freelance writing and voice acting, Hamilton spent 18 years in television and radio as reporter, anchor, editor, producer and news director. His career in broadcast took him from Vietnam to New York and back to Seattle. His awards include Associated Press and United Press International Reporter of the Year, and he is a three-time recipient of the prestigious Edward R. Murrow Award for Excellence in Broadcasting. Hamilton lives with his wife, public artist Pam Beyette, and his two cats, Cooper and Mini-Cooper, in Seattle. Please visit his website www.troutdogs.com.
Rick Fowler taught English in a Northern Michigan high school for 34 years before retiring in 2012. He has been a freelance outdoor writer for the past 23 years. He is currently a field editor for Hooks and Bullets magazine and a Michigan editor for Midwest Outdoors. He is a regular contributor to Woods ‘n Water, The Mackinaw Journal and The Good Life. He has won two Writer of the Year awards from Midwest Outdoors and a Michigan Outdoor Writers Association writing award from his peers. Fowler gleans numerous story ideas for articles on bird hunting and fishing at his residence in Northwest Michigan and his cottage on South Manistique Lake in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. He and his wife Sue are proud parents of two children who have also pursued educational careers.
Eva Shockey knows what it means to be part of the outdoor industry. Growing up with professional hunter and television personality Jim Shockey as her father, Eva Shockey was brought outdoors and in front of the camera at an early age. With a combined passion for conservation and adventure, Shockey is now a full-fledged Outdoor Channel and Wild TV personality and is quickly making a name for herself within the industry as a proud outdoors-woman. She spends more than 250 days per year traveling the world to co-host “Jim Shockey’s Hunting Adventures,” as well as representing the Outdoor Channel as host for various TV specials and red carpet events. Shockey is linked with various well-known outdoor brands like Crosman, Mossy Oak and HunterCourse, writes for various magazines and publications and makes guest appearances at trade shows and fundraisers across Canada and the USA. Shockey has found a way to balance hunting, travel and family into what she calls the “best lifestyle in the world.”
Based in the Adirondack Mountains of northern New York, writer, photographer, and licensed guide Ed Kanze writes about the birds and the bees — which is to say he writes about nature, and the swirl of activity that makes the wild world go round. Kanze has published five books: “Notes From New Zealand,” “The World of John Burroughs,” “Wild Life,” “Kangaroo Dreaming: An Australian Wildlife Odyssey,” and “Over the Mountain and Home Again.” His latest book, an Adirondack Mountain memoir interwoven with family history and natural history, will be published in 2014. Kanze’s newspaper column, “All Things Natural,” has been published weekly since 1987. He also writes a column for the Adirondack Explorer and is a contributing editor at Bird Watcher’s Digest. Kanze has won the prestigious John Burroughs Association award for Outstanding Published Natural History Essay of 2004 and a gold medal at the International Regional Magazine Awards. Kanze is a former national park ranger and lives with his wife and two children.
John Allen, born and raised in south-central Pennsylvania, has been an outdoor writer and photographer since 2005. He has had a passion for the outdoors from a young age and has always enjoyed communicating it to anyone that would listen. He regularly appears in the Pennsylvania Angler & Boater magazine and Pennsylvania Outdoor News. His specialties are freshwater fishing, kayaking, white-tailed deer hunting and wild turkey hunting. Other interests include long-distance running, wild edible gathering, and vegetable gardening. He currently serves as the treasurer of the Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association. On a full-time basis, Allen is a certified public accountant with a regional accounting firm in south-central Pennsylvania. He resides in Carlisle, Pa., with his wife Maribeth and their dog, Remy.
Jessica McGlothlin is a freelance photojournalist and writer. Montana is home but she is a wanderer at heart; her most recent adventure took her above the Arctic Circle on the Kola Peninsula in Russia for six weeks. After a summer of documentary work on Montana’s Missouri River, she’s now in the greater Puget Sound area while researching her next adventure. She has written for a selection of publications in the U.S. and abroad, including American Cowboy,
Cowboys & Indians, Fly Fisherman, Fly Fusion, American Angler and The Big Sky Journal. She is on the team at Chi Wulff and grew up around the fly-fishing lifestyle. She is a member of the National Press Photographer’s Association and Lightstalkers, and was recently invited to spend a week with the U.S. military for a journalism training program. McGlothlin is working on relocating overseas in pursuit of new subjects to photograph. While her goal in journalism is to cover conflict, the outdoor world has provided some unexpected — and fascinating — adventures.
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Marsha Sue evolves into avid outdoorswoman

BY PETER VAN HORN
When Marsha Sue married Al Sue 21 years ago, she promised they would stay open to each other’s passions. He loved the outdoors. A Southern California executive, she had never been in a truck or worn jeans — she assumed they were only for farmers. As a wedding gift, the newlywed Marsha Sue received a shotgun.
Al and Marsha Sue met through a dating service. Neither of them had time for traditional dating, Al Sue said. He knew right away his future bride wasn’t used to the outdoors, but with his help she became an avid hunter, angler and camper.
The couple delved into their respective interests and began to explore the world. Marsha Sue’s former career in an executive financial position had involved looking at “broken” companies and deciding whether to fund them. After years of living in Los Angeles, she wasn’t fully prepared for a new life immersed in the outdoors. Yet, she learned about hunting and fishing, activities that are now mainstays in her life.
“It’s been one hell of a transition,” her husband said.
After her career as an executive, Sue was tired of working for big organizations. She had developed communication skills during her years in finance, but she wanted to change topics. So she started working for herself, as a public speaker with a focus on leadership and personal development. Her speaking led her to take up writing as well. Her husband saw her talent as a communicator from day one.
“She is a bright lady, with an incredible ability to listen to people and pick up what they say and contribute to the conversation,” he said.
Sue stayed open to her husband’s passion. She embraced life as an outdoors-woman, hunting zebra in Africa and helping her friends from California accessorize camouflage.
Trying new things outside of her comfort zone was important to her and something she constantly pursued.
“Doing the unexpected and challenging myself is something I have to do every day,” she said.
She was doing just that- the challenging and unexpected- when she met Sandy Froman.
A lawyer, Froman is a former president of the National Rifle Association and has been an NRA board member for more than two decades. Sue met Froman in 2003, at Babes with Bullets, a women’s-only firearms camp, where they hit it off immediately. After years of hunting and exploring together, Froman says Sue is, above all else, prepared.
“You could have an emergency breakdown with her and end up having a steak dinner with champagne,” Froman said.
She recalled a hunting trip with Sue. They were hunting antelope; Froman had already tagged her animal and they were searching for another for Sue. On a small overlook, Froman watched as Sue, still holding her rifle safely, began to jump around and high step back from where she was standing. A rattlesnake had emerged from a crevice right in front of her.
“And it was a big snake too,” Froman said.
No snakes or professional speakers were harmed, and the two women still joke about the trip as the time Froman learned that Sue could dance.
Froman got Sue involved in the NRA, and helped grow Sue’s interest in guns and gun rights. Whether in the field or the office, Froman liked to have her around.
“She’s a ball of fire, energetic, enthusiastic, upbeat, and very friendly and outgoing,” Froman said.
In addition to speaking and writing, Sue volunteers for several conservation organizations. She is president of the Women’s Outdoor Media Association, a member of the NRA Women’s Leadership Forum Executive Committee with Froman, and a member of the Arizona Antelope Foundation.
Some of Sue’s work with the antelope foundation involves removing or modifying fences. Because antelope go under fences, the group removes barbs from the lowest wire, or removes the fence altogether, to help protect the animals from injury.
Outdoor Experience for All also gets her attention. Sue is passionate about getting others involved in conservation and into wilderness. Outdoor Experience for All is a nonprofit that gives terminally ill children a chance to explore and enjoy nature. As a volunteer she helps in any area she can, from organizing banquets to participating in activities with the kids.
On top of all that, Sue still writes and speaks professionally. She also goes outdoors with her husband and friends as often as possible. Staying busy and involved is important to her. She has produced more than 30 books, CDs and DVDs, and her books have been translated into several languages.
“My mission in life is to give back more than I receive and connect my head and my heart to my mouth,” she said.
-Peter Van Horn is a student at the University of Montana. He believes that outdoor journalism is an essential tool to address real environmental issues. Van Horn is also interested in feature writing and wilderness photography. He joined OWAA as a journalism intern for the summer of 2013.
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• If you’re marketing skills or a product, then set up a profile. Be as complete as possible and keep it current. When you complete a project, post it as an accomplishment.
• Link up with businesses or professionals with whom you wish to build a relationship.
• Ask appropriate people to “rate” your skills. Reciprocate with your own “thank-you” rating.
• Post job openings. It’s worth having a profile set up just for this, so it’s ready when you are looking for new employees.
• Find me at Mary Linkevich or Hawk Mountain Sanctuary.

Facebook
At Hawk Mountain, Facebook is second only to our website, and I spend the most of my carefully-managed time here. Birders turn to our page for weather and flight conditions. Our Facebook page links to Twitter, so our followers are updated at both sites.

• If you don’t have a profile, then set up an account today. Consider creating both personal and professional accounts.
• Add additional administrators to help update the page for your business.
• Post links back to your website, but post infrequently to avoid inundating your followers with information to the point they are annoyed.
• Use Facebook “insights” to help tweak your approach.
• Keep it professional. Avoid personal posts, but do share articles relevant to your organization.
• Post information about your organization on your personal page, too, to reach more people.
• Find me at www.facebook.com/mary.linkevich or at www.facebook.com/HawkMountainSanctuary.

Pinterest
Think of this as an online bulletin board. Pinterest continues to be female dominated, but if attracting this audience is important to your business, then jump in.

• Establish yourself as an expert on topics that support your brand and create boards in your area of expertise. Include content you or your organization has produced, but also material from credible sources your customers will enjoy. At Hawk Mountain, our female customers are savvy, conservation-minded outdoors women, so my boards include Learning Outdoors, Nature Crafts, Mountain Wear, Campfire Cooking, and Great Reads (including Hawk Mountain publications and that of our partners), as well as Raptors in Flight and The Sanctuary.
• Create a business account using an email different from your personal address, even if you have to set up a new gmail account just for this purpose.
• Find me at www.pinterest.com/marysue72 or at www.pinterest.com/HawkMountainPa.

Of course there are more forms of social media, and each could run its own column. So here are a few best practices that can be applied to any platform.

• Focus on visuals and variety. Great images always get top response.
• Focus on quality over quantity. Look for “good” followers, not just all your personal friends who may not share your interests.
• Engage with other outdoor communicators and learn from watching what works and what doesn’t.
• Don’t forget to be human. It’s really NOT all business, and to connect with new audience members, you do need to connect on a personal level.
• Don’t be scared. Just jump in and test the waters when new outlets become available and then stick with what works; drop those that don’t help you meet your goals.
• Model best practices and learn from those you think do a great job and you enjoy following. This isn’t stealing, it’s just smart.

-Mary Linkevich is a full-time information, communications and grant manager for Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, a nonprofit outdoor nature center and research and training facility. You can contact her at linkevich@hawkmountain.org.
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A Simple Rule Transforms Images

BY TIM FLANIGAN
Want to shoot great wildlife photographs all the time? It can be done by strict adherence to one hard and fast rule: “The eyes have it.” Photography is all about the eyes; specifically the eyes of the subject.
Eyes are much more than the windows to the soul, so much so that the manner in which they are rendered in a photograph or painting is of the greatest importance to the quality of the work. Your photography will immediately improve if you always focus your attention — and your lens — on the eye of the subject and nothing else.
To produce high-quality images of living things, from elk to mayflies, you must capture at least one of the subject’s eyes in sharp focus and it must contain a catchlight or highlight. These small telltale reflections of the photo’s light source give life to the subject and image. Flat dark eyes without a catchlight appear dead, and cause the viewer’s eye to lose interest in the entire subject.
No matter what focusing mechanism or method you use in your photography, the camera and your eye must constantly focus on the subject’s eyes and you must trip the shutter only at the moment the eye is completely in focus and a catchlight flashes on its surface. Forget about the rest of the subject and shoot it in the eyes. This rule always — always, always — applies no matter how large or small the subject, or how narrow the depth of field. Shoot the elk or buck in the eyes and let the rest of the subject be rendered as it may. We can, of course, influence the depth of field by selecting various f-stops (lens aperture sizes), but even the narrowest band of sharp focus will produce great wildlife photos if the eye is located within the sharpest portion of the photo.
We’ve all heard about the deer hunter who focused on the antlers of the buck-of-a-lifetime and missed the shot. This same division of attention afflicts photographers and we must force ourselves to observe the scene within the viewfinder with divided vision. What is that? Divided vision is the ability to observe and monitor the overall composition of the scene, while keeping the subject’s eye in constant focus by your eye and the camera lens. No matter how the subject is oriented to the camera, or how long or broad the subject may be, if the eye is captured properly, you have a presentable photo.
Not only must you commit to focusing on the eyes, you must also select the proper eye to focus on. With animals such as deer, elk, moose and most birds, we often see only one eye at a time. But with owls, bears and humans, which have eyes located on the same plane and are observed simultaneously, it is vitally important to focus on the eye closest to the camera. A slight turn of the subject’s head can shift one eye a few millimeters farther from your lens and slightly out of the focal plane. Keep your attention and the focus sensor upon the nearest eye. Focusing on the more distant eye renders the closer eye in soft focus, imparting a bleary-eyed look to the subject.
Most of us are now using auto-focus cameras and lenses, and although auto-focus capability is a wonderful aid, it must be applied with precise purpose to render a living thing’s eyes as sharp as possible. Nearly all modern high-end digital and film cameras feature focus sensors that can be selected at the will of the photographer. Even so, the location of the sensor in the view finder frame rarely falls directly on the subject’s eye as you compose the overall scene. Simply place the focus sensor on the eye and depress the shutter release until it snaps into sharp focus. Maintain that focus setting with steady pressure on the shutter release, move the lens to the desired composition and trip the shutter.
We must also remember that the eye’s surface is highly reflective and often produces mirror images that may include the photographer and the area behind him or her. This is especially true with close-up photography. I once saw a full page photograph of the head of a great-horned owl and its overly large eyes that contained a clearly visible scene of a suburban garage and driveway containing a car and several onlookers. Although perfectly composed and exposed, neither the photographer, nor the publication’s editor, had focused on those all-important eyes.
Of course, the appearance of the eyes can be manipulated in the computer, but we must strive to obtain the best quality photograph possible in the camera. Great images require little computer adjustment and result in images that please the eye of the beholder.
-Tim Flanigan is an award winning, Pennsylvania based, freelance outdoor writer/photographer and a proud member of OWAA since 1996. Two of his images earned OWAA EIC awards in the association’s 2013 awards program. Tim and his wife Debbie operate Nature Exposure, a freelance writing/photography business and Tim teaches digital photography at a local community college and other venues. You can view his work at www.natureexposure.com.
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Tompkins Deserves Award

It is satisfying to finally see one of the toughest, most dogged, courageous, obstinate defenders of the Texas outdoors get his just recognition. Michael Furtman got it right when he said, “… he covers natural resources like no one else in
the state, and few in the nation.” I know there were times when upper level state conservation and environmental officials were uncomfortable with Shannon’s blunt reporting — reporting that stemmed from his boots on the ground approach to journalism.
I have been aware of Shannon Tompkin’s dedication to the truth in the outdoors for more than thirty years. My appreciation to the Circle of Chiefs, and congratulations to my friend, Shannon Tompkins.
— Sam Caldwell, Kingwood, Texas
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