After 220 days of travel in 2024, I slowed my pace in 2025 and found something unexpected. Returning to familiar places, working with smaller groups, and choosing experience over accumulation reshaped how I photograph and how I teach. This year became a reminder that photography is not about doing more, but about seeing more, learning deeply, and showing up with intention.

There’s a unique rhythm to photographing nature’s extremes—the frost on a leaf and the caribou crossing a ridge. In this guide, I share how I plan a single trip to capture both ends of that spectrum, from macro to mammals, using a lightweight two-lens setup, location strategy, and ethical field practices that let nature lead the story.

Looking back over all this last year has thrown at me and the things I voluntarily took on, here are my top lessons from the field.

Many photographers overlook a powerful tool: the histogram. This post explains the connections between histograms, exposure, better images.