Bald Eagles and Me | Craig Pifer Photography

While I don't consider myself to be a wildlife photographer, it is certainly something that I enjoy when I can. I don't have the long telephoto lenses of the great wildlife photographers, but I can certainly aspire to that. I do my best with the shorter focal lengths that I have, and occasionally get what I believe to be a decent photo.

Today's excursion to the local Ankeny National Wildlife Refuge certainly yielded good results for me. Please continue on for the story and more photos.

Operation Photo Rescue

Life sometimes has a roundabout way of providing opportunities.

My Favorites of 2012 | Craig Pifer Photography

It seemed like the popular thing to do, compile a selection of photos from the past year that you believe to be your best, or maybe just your favorites.

For the second year in a row I did just that. Rather than just choosing a random number of images, and saying that they are my absolute best, I've chosen 12, one from each month, and am calling them favorites. They may or may not be my best images, but as I reviewed my photos they are the ones that jumped out at me. Perhaps in a month or two I would look back and choose a different set of 12.

Here they are in slide show format:


If you are so inclined you may purchase a 2013 calendar with these images here.

Wedding Photography Slide Show | Craig Pifer Photography

I recently put together a slide show of photo that I took at my brother-in-law's wedding last July. The included photos are from the rehearsal and dinner as well as from the wedding and reception.

They had another paid photographer, so I was just there as a guest, and father of the flower girls, but had fun getting a few shots anyway. Please enjoy the images.

Occasionally I Learn Something New

I was looking at this blog earlier and I noticed that it has been nearly a full year since I last posted. I'm sure I could come up with some great excuses as to why it's taken me so long, but I really don't have an excuse, I've just neglected it. Sure, I have great plans to add great content here, but then when it comes down to it I just don't make, or take, the time to do so. Maybe I feel that the content I have in mind isn't really that great after all. So, this post will keep me from going more than a year between posts, and brings you, the reader, a bit up to date on at least a couple of things.

Photography, Me, and Google+

For the past several months I have been spending time with a new social network, Google+. At first I wasn't real sure what to do with the account. In short order though I found that there were a lot of other photographers on Google+ and they were interested in sharing and interacting with each other.

I'm not going to tell you how to use Google+, or even talk about all the great features that are available to photographer, and other users. If that's what you are looking for, the Colby Brown has you covered with his Google+: The Survival Guide for a Photographer's Paradise. I highly recommend reading his post.

In fact, it was Colby Brown that really prompted this blog post. He recently announced a contest the required writing a short essay about why G+ is great for photographers. I wrote something, very short, and not nearly as articulated as I might like, but I've been thinking about it since then. This is an attempt to express my thoughts a little better, but I make no promises that I will succeed.

Preparing Images for Printing at Retail | LightScribbles

Rule one, or maybe it's one rule of blogging is to write about what you know. I think that I'm qualified to write about this topic. I've worked in photo retail for over 10 years, much of that time printing photos for customers.

I often see customers that bring in photos that are the wrong filetype, size, bit depth, colorspace, or any number of other possible issues. I'll try to address some of that and help you to get it right next time you take your photos in for printing or order prints online.

This is the image that I'll use to help illustrate this topic.