Sometimes the wildlife is as curious about me as I am about it. This baby southern elephant seal pressed its nose right up against my lens before resuming its morning nap. We made our acquaintance on Sea Lion Island in the Falkland Islands.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 24mm) ISO 400, f/4.5 at 1/500th of a second

I photographed this gentoo penguin first thing in the morning. By using a longer focal length, I was able to compress the space between the penguin and the moon. A small aperture gave the image more of a night time look than early morning.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 300mm) ISO 800, f/22 at 1/60th of a second, two Nikon SB-900 flash units

Just a simple headshot here of a striated caracara, locally known in the Falkland Islands as the Johnny Rook. These guys are fairly tame as you can tell from this close up. They were basically following me wherever I went in the Falklands, hoping that a few scraps would fall out of my backpack. This one spent a good part of the afternoon with me while I was photographing elephant seals on Carcass Island. Although they are common in the Falklands, they are an endangered species.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 400, f/6.3 at 1/320th of a second

If you ever wondered what a penguin’s eye looks like, this is the post for you. The subject is a baby king penguin and it obviously let me get very close. It’s not a macro shot, however, but rather was taken with my telephoto lens from about ten feet away and then cropped. It’s always nice to have willing subjects and be able to experiment with different angles and points of view.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/8 at 1/500th of a second

Here’s another look at the striated caracara (aka Johnny Rook). I was down on the ground with my camera and wide angle lens while this guy was chasing around a Gentoo penguin egg, unable to figure out how to break it open as it rolled across the beach on Saunders Island in the Falkland Islands.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 17mm) ISO 1600, f/10 at 1/1600th of a second

This rockhopper penguin seemed to be doing his best to keep me out of whatever rockhopper-y event was going on in the background. Of the five species of penguin I photographed in the Falkland Islands, the rockhoppers were certainly the most personable.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 70mm) ISO 3200, f/2.8 at 1/3200th of a second

This one goes out to my little friend Jackson who I met this weekend in Denver. Jackson likes penguins. This is a king penguin and her chick (lots of mothers and babies this week). The chick is prodding the mom to regurgitate food. You can see all the feathers on the ground from all the other molting chicks (under all that brown, the feathers are actually white). I like how the chicks look almost bigger than the full grown adults.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 140mm) ISO 1600, f/2.8 at 1/160th of a second

One of my favorite days in the Falkland Islands was when I spent an afternoon with a colony of imperial shags atop a steep cliff at the far end of Sea Lion Island. It was fun (and easy) to photograph them as they came and went, building their nests with kelp brought from the ocean below. This shag was landing empty handed but I liked the wing position as it touched down on its nest. I’m going to start uploading larger images. They’ll still be the same size on the page, but if you click, you will get a much larger file.
Nikon D800 with Nikkor 200-400mm lens (at 400mm) ISO 800, f/7.1 at 1/1250th of a second

Of the five species of penguin that I photographed in the Falkland Islands, the macaroni was the least common (at least in the Falklands — worldwide they are the most numerous). I only saw a total of three. These two and a single penguin, both caught up in colonies of rockhopper penguins. Luckily, these macaronis were on the edge of the colony so I was able to get pretty close with my wide angle lens. As with most species of penguin, a mating pair shares the duty of sitting on the egg(s). In this shot, it almost looks like the one is ordering the other to get off the egg. They were actually in the middle of a shift change.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 17-35mm lens (at 19mm) ISO 800, f/6.3 at 1/2000th of a second

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July holiday (at least everyone from the US). Here’s another group of king penguins doing their king penguin thing first thing in the morning as the sun rises on another day in the Falkland Islands.
Nikon D810 with Nikkor 70-200mm lens (at 200mm) ISO 800, f/2.8 at 1/2500th of a second