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| © Kim Steininger |
| Great gray owl, ON, Canada. Click photo for more images. |
What do you love about photography? For many of us it's the creative opportunities we find no matter where we turn our lens: landscapes, people, architecture.
But there are others who focus their energy. For them, it's all about photography's power to explore one subject -- to show it brilliantly, in a way that makes people see it anew. It's this single-minded, long-term pursuit that gets them up, out, and behind the viewfinder year after year.
Obsessive? Perhaps. But maybe that's what it takes to get photographs like these.
Kim Steininger
It started with a walk. Kim Steininger was out near her new home in Chadds Ford, PA, when she noticed some birds she hadn't seen before. Not big into birds, Steininger was taken by their blue plumage. Later, a bird book told her they were, well, bluebirds.
One thing led to another, and soon Steininger was putting out mealworms to attract bluebirds to her back deck. Within months, she had a nest full of fledglings in her yard, and a camera in her hand to record them.
"I started shaking from excitement," she says. And it sparked her on what she calls "my obsession with photographing birds."
Today, eight years later, the 48-year-old Steininger has a portfolio of bird photos to rival any pro's. But she remains an amateur, with a day job running a law firm's computer network.
"Between that and processing images, I don't have a lot of spare time during the week, so I try to spend as much time outside photographing as possible on the weekends," she says. "Many weekends I'll leave home an hour or two before sunrise and not get back until an hour or two after sunset."
And her gear is as serious as her attitude, as her primary rig is a Canon EOS-1D Mark II and a 500mm f/4 Canon IS lens.
Of course, over the years her approach has evolved. She moved from capturing images of bluebirds on her deck, to putting up branches for the birds to perch on, to shooting in the wild. She's photographed from Canada to Florida. Her favorite place? Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge in Smyrna, DE, where she once spent her longest day of shooting.
"There was a thin layer of clouds providing some nice diffusion most of the day, and at times it even rained a little -- a perfect day for shooting. I sat on an upside-down bucket in the weeds, in a bug suit and blind on a hot summer day, for almost 12 hours. I was so engrossed that I didn't care how hot or hungry I was," she recalls.
Then there was the Ontario Great Gray Owl Irruption of 2004-05. The owl population of Ontario exploded, and twice that winter, Steininger and her significant other, Paul Leverington ("Definitely the person who has helped me the most!") ventured into the Canadian woods. The owls were feeding during daylight -- good news for photographers -- and a bird flew directly at Steininger, who fired off a few frames at almost point-blank range with her 500mm lens before ducking. One of those images took grand prize in the 2005 National Wildlife Federation photo contest.
"I hope that after seeing my photography, people will look more closely the next time they see a bird or any other gift of nature -- and, if they don't already, begin to appreciate and respect the beauty of this world we live in."
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