Jim Guilford's Photo Gallery

I consider this the "Holy Grail" of puffin pictures: a puffin on the wing with fish in its mouth. I took a lot of these, but this is the only one that came out remotely good.

A puffin bobbing in the water off of Machias Seal Island. There were literally thousands of puffins all over the place. Unfortunately, due to sea condiditions, we could not land and get pictures from the stability of solid ground. So all of the pictures were hand-held from a bobbing boat. Do you know how hard it is to hand hold a 500mm lens when your boat is bobbing?

A puffin bobbing in the water off of Machias Seal Island. This one featured a second bird just entering the frame in the backgroun.

A pair of puffins bobbing in the water off of Machias Seal Island.

Hallgrimskirkja lit up at night in Reykjavik Iceland. "Kirkja" means "church" in Icelandic.

This is a picture of the best aurora that we saw. Unfortunately, at the end of the exposure a truck came at us, shining its headlights at the camera. I've tried to fix the damage this caused in the image, but you'll have to judge how successful I was.

This is the Svartifoss (or maybe the Magnusafoss) in Iceland. The sky was completely overcast. While this made it easier to get long exposures, it was challenging for composition, as the sky would come out overblown white.

This was "sunrise" on the Black Sand Beach near Vik in Iceland. One advantage of visiting Iceland in the winter is that the sun rises and sets so slowly that sunrise and sunset last for hours.

This was one of the few days we had that was actually sunny and not too overcast.

Walking around Tingvellir National Park, we saw a ptarmigan in its winter plumage (almost all white) run across the path. We stalked it, and it apparently tried to not move and blend in with the rocks. Eventually we were only 3-4 feet away taking picures. Two different groups walked by, without the bird flinching. Eventually we left, with the bird still motionless where we were photographing it.

Some Maine Blueberries, growing wild on the side of the trail down from Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park.

This was a close-up of a Dalia from Thuya Garden, near Northeast Harbor, near Acadia National Park.

A butterfly at Thua Garden, in Northeast Harbor, near Acadia National Park, Maine.

This is a small arched pedestrian bridge, right next to the main road in Somesville Maine (near Acadia National Park). It is rumored to be one of the most photographed bridges.

London's famed Tower Bridge lit up at night.

View of Aiguille de Midi from the summit of Mont Blanc just after sunrise. This ridge is the route that I should have taken the previous year.

The complete story of the climb can be found elsewhere on this web site.

View down the South East Ridge of Mont Blanc from the summit. The Italian Alps are in the background.

I tried to get some star pictures while hiking in the White Mountains. This was the best of the lot. I took this on a little 6-inch tripod outside of AMC's Greenleaf Hut, 2/3rds of the way up Mount Lafayette, next o Franconia Notch in NH. The trees at the bottom were lit up by the light spilling out of the hut. The moon had just set, and I think I was facing SSW.

A juvenile Ruby-Throated Hummingbird. Unfortunately, as it is a juvenile, it doesn't yet have the brighter plumage.

We have not usually seen hummingbirds around our house, but this year we noticed a family that seemed to have made a nest nearby. So we set up a feeder, and we were rewarded by being finally able to watch them do their magical hovering tricks. Still, the birds did not stay still for very long, so it was somewhat challenging to get the lens to focus in time to get a good picture of one.

I was taking close-up pictures of some cone flowers in my yard, testing out my macro filters, when a bee came by to investigate the flowers. He proved rather cooperative, and so I caught him in the act of doing his bee thing.

We were visiting a balloon festival in a local park. There were a number of ballons there, and just after sunset, I found that the flames used to heat the air inside the balloons made them glow from within.

This is a flash picture of some icicles hanging from the gutter of my house in Northborough. I managed to catch one droplet just as it was starting to fall.

We were on a cruise on the Sloop Mary Day, and we were anchored for the night at the mouth of the Penobscot River, just off the coast of Maine. As the sun set behind a small peninsula, it light up the cloud cover in a rather spectacular fashion.

This is a multiple exposure of the Super Blood Moon. I cheated and used multiple exposures from my 500mm lens, and slightly exaggerated the size of the moon (or equivalently slightly shrank the distance between the images). A more accurate depiction of the eclipse to scale can be found here. That version was shot with my point-and-shoot without moving the camera between exposures.

I found (unfortunately too late) that with my 500mm lens that I would have had to have limited my exposure to about 1/8s or 1/4s at most to not get any motion blur from the apparent motion of the moon.

This is a view of Moraine Lake, near Lake Louise AB, in Banff National Park in Canada. It was taken from a classic vantage point, on top of a large "rock pile" at the northern end of the lake.

These are the Upper Johnston Falls, near Banff AB. They are accessed by an easy trail alongside the river.

This is a view along the Bow River in Banff AB. It was taken just below the falls near the center of town.

These are some falls in Maligne Canyon, near Jasper AB. The canyon trail follows a tributary of the Athabasca River through a series of Falls

This is a small waterfall dropping into the Maligne Canyon. I liked the way that it mimicked a river delta.

A moose was happily munching on vegetation on the bottom on Maligne Lake, near Jasper AB. He was doing so for rather a while. I had time to run back to the car to get my big lens, and then come back and take oodles of pictures. Eventually I got tired before he did, and returned my big lens to the car. When I returned, the moose was still there.

This was a Bald Eagle that was off the side of the road halfway between Jasper AB and Hinton. We saw some people pulled over to the side of the road, so we investigated what they were looking at. It turned out to be this Eagle. Shortly after taking this (and a few other) pictures, it flew off to a more distant tree.

This is the sun, hiding behind a cloud, taken from near the top of Whistler Mountain, near Jasper AB. As we were hiking from the tram stop to the summit, I happened to notice this interesting cloud. What struck me about it was the rainbow-like colors in different parts of the cloud.

This is one of my attempts at star pictures from near Sunwapta Falls, just south of Jasper AB. It wasn't the best night for star pictures, as the moon was almost full, and there were some clouds about. But I found that the wispy clouds added interest to the picture.

This is a shot looking up from the base of the totem pole. It is located right off of the main street in Jasper AB. I thought that this was an interesting and different angle that from which most people view it.

These are some fireworks for Applefest in Northborough MA. I liked the fan effect of the low ones.

Some more Applefest fireworks. The firework itself is rather blown out, but I liked being able to see the people watching it, and the wisps of smoke drifting downwind from it.

A late day view of Mount Monadnock reflected in a small pond. It was a perfect Autumn day, with the sun right behind us. At times the clouds would get in the way of a "good" shot, but here I think they add some interest. Particularly with the reflection, they seem to frame the shot.

This is an Autumn Still Life. It was taken in the center of Grafton Village VT, next to the Grafton Inn. That image just seemed to epitomize the Fall to me.

The lattice of a covered bridge just south of Keene NH is lit up the soon-to-be setting sun. The low sun highlights the warm orange-brown color of the beams. By focussing on the lattice, the picture becomes more of an abstract one, emphasizing the geometric nature.

This is the Ashuelot Covered Bridge, over the Ashuelot River, in Winchester NH. It was taken a few minutes after sunset. I liked the way that the foreground leaves echo the red of the cover bridge roof. The clouds add some visual interest to the sky, along with a sliver of moon showing through.

This was shot in my backyard in Northborough MA. I saw a thunderstorm brewing, but it was not yet raining where I was. So I got out my camera and tripod and proceeded to take a number of pictures, including this one. Eventually it did start to rain on me, at which time I grabbed my camera gear and retreated into the house.

This is a Dalia in Thuya Garden in Northeast Harbor ME. This is a wonderful publically accessible garden, full of cultivated flowers and other plants.

I particularly like the symmetry between the open flower and the closed up bud beside it.

This is the view from a butte at a campground just outside of the Needles district of Canyonlands National Park. The campground inside the park was full, but we were fortunate that there was one just outside. The campsites were situated at the base of a large butte.

We found the butte to be wonderful for climbing and exploring. This was the monsoon season of the southwest, and so we got showers and thunderstorms just about every afternoon. In this case, the lighting was just about perfect as the setting sun illuminated the sandstone, while there was a canopy of dark clouds overhead.

Angel's Landing is huge stone jutting out of the side of the canyon in Zion National Park, and looming over the Virgin River. A fairly rigorous hike ascends the canyon wall, and then a rough trail (augmented by chains in some spots) leads along a knife's edge to the summit. There are places on the trail where you are literally walking within a foot or two of an almost vertical 3000 foot drop to the canyon floor.

This is a cascade on the Havasu Creek in the canyon of the same name, just outside of the Grand Canyon National Park. This canyon is home to the Havasupai Indians and is a popular destination for hikers, due to the waterfalls and travertine formations.

This set of cascades is located maybe a half mile upstream from the camp site. As I hiked upstream I could see and hear a thunderstorm forming downstream from me. I took this picture and hurried back to our site. Literally about 5 seconds after I had tossed my camera gear into my tent, it started pouring.

These are the Vernal Falls just above the head of Yosemite Valley in Yosemite National Park. We had gone on this hike expecting to take waterfall pictures, and so I brought my tripod. This allowed me to take an exposure of this length. I find that my preferred exposure for waterfalls tends to be between 0.5 and 5 seconds.

This is the bloom of a thistle in Grand Teton National Park. It was my attempt to do some pseudo-macro photography (using my normal lens).