AROUND 2001, I MOVED FROM WASHINGTON, D.C., TO COLUMBIA, Maryland. Shortly after the move, I was walking around one of the lakes in Columbia when a great blue heron landed nearby. I had seen only photos of herons before. Seeing one land close to me was an epiphany. I always had an interest in photography, dating back to my time as a copyboy at the Evening Star. The darkroom at the newspaper was a great place to get away from my boss and the sometimes harried life in the newsroom. I became friends with some of the staff photographers and sometimes wished I knew more about photography.
In the mid-1970s, I was given a Nikon film camera and began to photograph people, places, and things. When I was managing the Rosslyn Mountain Boys, a photographer was hired to shoot our first album cover. The photos she took bordered between bad and terrible. I took the proverbial “bull by the horns” and set up my own shoot with the group. I shot black-and-white film and was happily surprised at how good the photos came out. They were good enough that the front and back covers of the LP were my shots. Dick Bangham, an artist for Adelphi Records (our label for that first LP), took my photos and airbrushed them into stylized color shots, and the album was released looking very nice.
By the time I had moved to Columbia, digital photography was beginning to take off. I decided to make the switch and bought my first digital camera, a Fujifilm FinePix S602 Zoom. It was a very good camera for landscapes and portraits but not for action shots. I wanted to capture birds in flight. The Fuji, being a high-end point-and-shoot, suffered from shutter lag. I needed a digital single-lens reflex camera. I decided on Nikon, as I still had some Nikon lenses from my “film camera days.” My first Nikon was the D70. In the years since, I have had a Nikon D200, D300, D7100, and D600 and my two current Nikons: the D500 for nature and wildlife and the mirrorless Z6 for landscapes and portraits.
In 2007, a photo I had taken of a dragonfly on a water lily was named one of the top photos of the year by The Nature Conservancy and Parade magazine. The photo appeared in Parade that year. I decided to make a go of nature and wildlife photography. It has been very fulfilling. There are no temptations when I’m in the field photographing wildlife. No woodpecker or eagle is going to offer me drugs. No groupie is going to knock on the dressing room door (there don’t tend to be any dressing rooms in a wetland or wildlife refuge).
My photos have appeared in books, magazines, and galleries and on websites and have been displayed in numerous museums in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere. Some of my photos grace kiosks in U.S. national parks. Nature photography gives me as many thrills as I had in the music business. I also began teaching my craft fifteen years ago. Cameras and smartphones have become so good that almost anyone can take a good photo. There is still a line between taking a good photo and knowing how to take a great photo. Ego notwithstanding, I have crossed that line.
My photography website is www.MichaelObermanPhotography.com.