FLASHBACKS TO THE DAYS OF FILM: 1993 TO 2007

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"What a wildly wonderful world, God! You made it all, with wisdom at your side, you made earth overflow with your wonderful creations." 
​Psalm 104:24, The Message Bible 

William Wise Photo Nature Notes is a wildlife, birding and nature photography blog documenting the wonders of God’s creation. -- Psalms 143:5 "I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy works; I muse on the work of thy hands."

Photography was not a first love, but born of necessity. My first love was reptiles: snakes, lizards, and turtles. On many of my early adventures, I would bring home some of the critters I encountered. But upon the realization that removing wildlife from their natural habitat wasn’t a good idea (and that my apartment was becoming overcrowded with cages), I began taking photos instead of taking the actual critters. 

My first “real” camera was a hand-me-down from my mother. It was a Minolta X-700 film camera. Without autofocus, most of my early shots were pretty bad. I later upgraded to a Minolta Maxxum 450si with a 100-400mm telephoto lens which lasted me until my first digital in 2007. These early photographs are scanned from prints and are primarily pretty poor "photos of record" documenting the animals I encountered over the years. 

1993 It started with an Iguana

6/11/94 Brazos Rattlesnake Ranch

6/16/94 Wasted Rattler

1995 Captive Colubrids

10/1995 Hognose Death Feign

4/1996 Senior Project

4/1996 Capture the Armadillo

4/1996 alligator capture tag release

8/1996 The Pipeline

10/1996 Pickney Island

2/1997 Hard Labor Creek SP

5/10/97 Northern Watersnake

1/10/1997 Okefenokee Swamp

3/22/97 Savannah Wildlife Refuge

5/15/97 Airport Coyote Puppies

5/20/97 Box Turtle

6/1/97 Raccoon encounter

6/5/97 Fledgling Hawks

6/5/97 Animal Control Opossum

6/16/97 Sick baby skunk

7/15/97 Animal Control Bat

9/1997 Salamanders

10/9/97 Animal Control Opossum

10/11/97 Savannah Tybee Trail

3/11/98 Red-bellied Snake

3/20/98 Garter Snake

3/31/98 Hot Herps

3/18/98 Grounded Barred Owl

3/23/98 SNWR Wildlife Drive

1998 Mojave Madness

1998 Python Pal

3/31/98 First Chickadee

4/13/98 Fence Swift

4/13/98 Eastern Mud Turtle

4/18/98 Baby Black Ratsnake

4/21/98 Police Pond Birds

4/23/98 Flycatcher Caught

4/24/98 Athens Black Ratsnake

4/26/98 Pet Caimans and Monitors

5/3/98 Red-Tailed Hawk

5/5/98 Rough Greensnake

5/13/98 Slimy Salamander

5/14/98 Red Fox Kits

6/8/98 Saguaro Natl Park

3/29/2000 Romanian Bears

5/14/98 Five-lined Skink

5/19/98 Dumpster Diving

5/19/98 Athens Black Ratsnake

5/21/98 Georgia Snapper

5/21/98 Rabid Fox

5/28/98 Red Salamander

5/28/98 Box Turtle

1998 Mexican Free-Tailed Bat

9/23/99 Disney Egret

10/6/99 Sick Red Fox

2000 Ratsnake vs. Robin

2000 Rattlesnake Rattles Family

2001 Baby Black Racer

2001 Eastern Worm Snake

6/19/02 The Javelina Hunter

8/2002 Ringneck Snake

2006 Animal Control Critters

QUICK LINKS TO Previous Years JournalS

"We generalize, then, by saying that mass-use tends to dilute the quality of organic trophies like game and fish, and to induce damage to other resources such as non-game animals, natural vegetation, and farm crops. The same dilution and damage is not apparent in the yield of 'indirect' trophies, such as photographs. Broadly speaking, a piece of scenery snapped by a dozen tourist cameras daily is not physically impaired thereby, nor does any other resource suffer when the rate increases to a hundred. The camera industry is one of the few innocuous parasites on wild nature." 
                  Aldo Leopold, father of wildlife conservation in America, 1887 to 1948

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