The Region Wildlife and Topical Photography

I work as an IT Director, I help make complex technical choices for a largish company. I do that because not so long ago someone told me I needed to grow up, I was after all almost 30 years old. At the time, I was working at a zoo in Utica NY and surviving on peanuts (actually on Ramen, but I digress). In my mind I had already grown up and made a decision, I was going to do what I was passionate about and damn the consequences. A grown up would have considered the consequences of his choices and mapped out a path that included his passions in his life. Sigh…. I so mapped. No longer would I toil away caring for animals at minimal wages just so I could get the best photo opportunities.

(more…)

When working on the basic skills, I used to tend to get a book, read the rules and get to work.  This led to gradual incorporation of the rules at best.  The reason that is slow is that you get no opportunity to “do over” or fix your mistakes.  I think that most of us (who are not already pros) tend to pick up our cameras and go out to “shoot” with a vague idea of what we are going to shoot.  Maybe, that is an exaggeration and we know what we are shooting that day but have no idea about next week.  When we shoot like this, most shots are unique which is good in a way.  However, when we are practicing the rule of thirds and we get a picture of a slam dunk dead center we may not get to try that shot again (unless we go to a basketball game on day 2).

(more…)

This is the first post in my blog,  as such I should introduce myself and set the expectations for this ongoing project.  My name is Karl Tatgenhorst and I am a semi professional wildlife photographer hailing from NW Indiana.  The intent of my blog is to document my attempt to integrate a small side photography business into my rather dull and uneventful life as an IT professional, father of three children, home owner and keeper of three dogs and three cats plus  being a husband.  So, in my spare time I will be photographing wildlife,  in more of my spare time I will blog,  in the remainder of my spare time I will market my photos.  I hope this proves interesting at least for me.

Photography has been a passion of mine for the last 12 years,  specifically wildlife photography.  Recently,  I have decided to work on taking my photography to the next level in the hopes of subsidizing this expensive passion of mine.  This blog will document all aspects of this pursuit and hopefully it will help some other people in similar circumstances as well as generate helpful comments from other readers.

Thank you for your time,

Karl