The Springfield New-Leader posted a nice story about my exhibit and program (9/16) at the Springfield Conservation Nature Center.
River Hills Traveler readers voted me as “Favorite Outdoor Artist or Photographer” of the year.
Based in Piedmont, Missouri, the River Hills Traveler is a monthly newsletter that mostly covers the eastern Ozarks. It focuses on Missouri’s beautiful outdoors through various activities, including fishing, canoeing, hunting and wildlife-watching.
They wrote a nice story about me.
“Noppadol Paothong captures the essence of whatever he photographs.
Actually, that is an understatement. “Nop” is an outdoor photographer for the Missouri Department of Conservation, whose sharp images of even the tiniest parts of creatures make a person see how intricate nature can be, for nature’s own sake.
“My photos appear on a monthly magazine, Missouri Conservationist,” he writes. “They are a showcase of Missouri wildlife and natural resources.” Another place you can find his images is online at www.nopnatureimages.com.
It’s easy to see from the images why our readers would pick this 15-year veteran wildlife photographer. In addition to images that are technically excellent, Nop tries to capture the personality, or the essence, of whatever he photographs. The quizzical attitude of a fox. The grace of a soaring bird. The majesty and changeable weather of the prairie.
“I specialize in rare and endangered species,” he said. “For the past 10 years I’ve been working on a photo book titled “Save the Last Dance: a story of North American Grassland Grouse.” On his website, Nop tells of being mesmerized while taking pictures of prairie
chickens, and how he hopes his book will help save them.
More recently, he conducted a Facebook auction of some of his prints, as well as a chance to spend a day in the field learning photography from him – with the proceeds benefiting the Joplin tornado victims.
He’s a winner in more ways than one.”
From mid May to June, millions of Cicadas appeared in central Missouri. They are called “Periodical Cicadas.”
Here are some facts about these periodical cicadas.
The periodical cicada is a native North American species. It is the longest-lived insect in North America. They are widely distributed over the eastern half of the United States and occur nowhere else in the world.
It might have been a nuisance to some people. But their life story is simply amazing – spend 13 or 17 years underground as silent, solitary juveniles and emerge by the millions all at the same time. How do they survive such a long time underground? How do they know when to come out? How do they communicate with each other to emerge at the same time? So many are unknown to us.
For me, it was an impressive sight to see as millions of cicadas emerging from the ground and making such a loud sound all synchronized. It took several attempts to photograph their process of shedding skin. Apparently some were stronger than others. So some made it out of their skin in an hour so, but some never made it out. Also these cicadas were unbelievably loud that I had to use earplugs while photographing them.
Joplin was my hometown for several years when I went to school (Missouri Southern State University) and worked for the newspaper (the Joplin Globe).
I was very saddened by the destruction of such a warm and wonderful community and I wanted to help it rebuild.
I set up a facebook page (“Auction to help Joplin“) and auctioned off some of my photographs and a half-day workshop.
I’m happy to share the news that I raised $3,500, and Shelter Insurance Foundation generously matched the amount, which made it to $7,000.
I’m happy I could give something back to the community that has been so warm and generous.
I hosted a photography workshop on the Prairie Garden Trust in New Bloomfield, Missouri yesterday.
Henry Domke manages this beautiful prairie, and he kindly allowed me to use this place. (Please contact Henry if you’re interested in visiting this place.
This workshop was for people who made the highest bid in the auction I set up to help Joplin tornado victims. (For more details, visit the Facebook page here.)
The workshop included discussion on photography techniques such as how to look for good background, what exposure to use, effects of f-stop and shutter speed, white balance, and differences between auto-focus vs manual-focus, etc. followed by photo-shooting in the field.
We had a great time photographing butterflies and flowers on the prairie.
(Click here to read Henry’s blog on this workshop.)
After a successful evening with an adult red fox, I was itching to take more pictures of the fox family. I moved my photo blind closer to the front of the den and left it there for a few days. Most animals wouldn’t care about a photo blind, but a wary animal like foxes know their environment very well.
Of course,… things didn’t go as I planned. For the next two days, the fox kits were so wary that they didn’t even come out of the den. As you can imagine, sitting in a photo blind for hours in a hot and humid day isn’t necessarily fun.
The third day, I tried something different. I sprayed myself with a scent eliminator and went into the blind well before sunrise. The first hour I saw one kit poking its head out a few times. The second hour I saw a second one and then a third one poke their head in and out of the den. At last, the next hour, a magic happened. All three of the kittens came out of the den at the same time.
Startled at the sounds of camera shutter, they pointed their ears and looked straight into my direction. With a 600mm lens with 2x teleconverter, I decided to have more depth of field (f/stop) to get all of them in focus. I set my f/stop at f/11 and sacrifice a shutter speed, as slow as 1/60sec.
With a new Canon 1D Mark IV, I was able to set ISO at 1600. Amazingly, this new Canon camera allowed ISO to go this high and still managed to produce sharp images. How sharp? I made a 24×36 inches print and I could see every hair on them.
For several years some birds like Henslow’s Sparrow, Sedge Wren, and Upland Sandpiper had eluded me. They are not the most striking-looking or the most interesting birds. However, they are unique and important in the prairie ecosystem.
In fact, Henslow’s Sparrow is on a watch list in many states including Missouri. These birds spend most of their time hiding in grass and only in certain time of the year (and only if you’re lucky) you can hear their calls.
Some photographers don’t get much excited about these birds or don’t have much desire to photograph them. But as a conservation photographer, I feel it is my duty to document these birds and make people care and understand their importance.
To find these birds, I have to learn to listen to their calls and watch for their movement in the prairie. Both Henslow’s Sparrow and Sedge Wren pop up very quickly to perch on grasses or flowers. My technique of getting close to these birds is to sit low and move slow.
I was able to get close enough to this bird with my 600mm lens with 1.4x teleconverter. One hot evening I spot an upland sandpiper perched on a fence post. I positioned myself directly below where the bird appeared. 
Some people may think that prairie landscape is boring. Some folks even teased me - “Did you see grass moving there?”
Actually prairie is quite a sight to see, not to mention it plays a very important role in our ecosystem. Many species including birds, insects, and plants depend on it. Sadly, these precious grasslands are disappearing from our landscape.
With a good amount of rain this year, flowers were thriving. Grey-headed Coneflower and Prairie Blazing Star were blossomed as far as my eye could see. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath of fresh air. All I could hear was the sound of grass waving in the wind.
One late evening thunderclouds approached from the west. I scrambled for my wide angle lens, a polarizer filter, and a graduated neutral density filter. The light was fading fast and I knew I had less than a few minutes to capture the scene. In fact, I didn’t know what I had until I got home and really took a look at the image. And it took my breath away.
With all wildlife subjects I’ve photographed, Red Fox is one of my all time favorites. They are very smart and witty. More often, they can outsmart me. It doesn’t matter what I do to conceal myself. The fox always knows that’s a foreign object.
This spring I was fortunate enough to locate a fox’s den over the hill behind a residential home in the countryside. The forest was very dense, so it was very difficult to get a good light and a fast shutter speed to freeze the movement.
I put on my camouflage clothes and sat quietly against a tree. For hours as I waited, the fox didn’t come close enough. Just as the sun was setting behind the hill, the female fox came back with food to feed her youngsters. She sat over the hill covered with moss right in front of me. The light was on her perfectly.
I carefully rested my hand on the top of my lens in an attempt to stabilize any vibration – this technique is called long lens technique (or LLT). The shutter speed was 1/10sec even with ISO setting at 1000 ISO – I could have gone higher with my camera ISO, but then I would have had to sacrifice details and add much noise in my image. I held my breath as I pressed my shutter button. I took eight shots, three of which were on focus. The fox moved off quickly as soon as she spotted me. But it was one of those incredible moments in my photography experiences.
After several sleepless nights because of my newborn baby, I was able to get out just in time to photograph these flowering Dogwood. This Missouri state tree has such elegant flowers that I always wanted to produce good images of them.
I found that the Lake of the Ozark State Park located in Osage Beach always has a show of flowering Dogwood during springtime. I arrived at the location well before sunrise and searched for a potential area, because I like to “really” spend time studying my subject to better understand it. Normally, I would prefer to photograph flowers, especially white flowers like Dogwood, in overcast condition, but I decided to break my rule. 
I took this image at sunrise with a 70-200mm lens set a zoom at 150mm. I framed it very carefully and waited until the light hit the top of the tree.
After that I decided to try with a 600mm super telephoto lens (another 14 pounds to carry) to isolate the subject from the background.
This image was taken with my 17-40mm wide angle at 28mm. I laid on my back pointing my lens straight up to the flowers with clear blue sky as the background.
