Shawn Thomas Photography

Hey, I’m Shawn. I take pictures of birds who ignore me and landscapes that don’t care i’m there. Advocate for conservation, equality, and the correct use of turn signals (I’ll take any use really these days). Liberal. Husband. Dad. www.shawnthomas.art #birds #wildlife #nature #photography

Beautiful Sunset

Changing of the guard

London with a Lecia, a pretty bridge

Natural History Museum

London with a Leica

What a place Iceland was....

Cause everybody was surfing, but not everybody was surfing on an iceberg.

Another perspective of that spectacular night, now shot at 200mm.

One of the most incredible skies I have ever seen and it just kelt getting better and better as the night went on.

Some scenes you just stumble into and fall in love with them. This is one of them.

The one and only @marcrasselphoto.bsky.social being all zen and contemplative under a waterfall in Iceland.

I lied, one more puffin, for now... #birds #puffin

Finishing up puffin week #birds #puffin

On the cliffside #birds #puffin

Wing flapping #birds #puffin

Tonight I'll be teaching a class on wildlife photography for Northern Virginia Photographic Society. Its free to attend the the details are in the image, hope to see some of you there!

MOAR Puffin #birds #puffin

Tern fight. #birds #tern

Court is in session and this is probably the cutest court in the world.  #birds #puffin

A nice intimate moment at Skógafoss @nikonoutdoors @nikonusa #nikoncreator #worldshares #appicoftheweek #Skógafoss

Around this time of year I always miss the Osprey.  #birds #wildlife

The decisive moment, shot from above. #birds #wildlife

I still have a lot more to share from Iceland but lets take a short break for awhile because my local backlog continues to grow as well. #birds #wildlife

PUUUUFFFFIIIIINNNN!

Blue skies and neon grass

More animals of Iceland. The Icelandic horses.

Icelandic sheep are so coo, cause they roam. I saw them on cliffs, on the beach, on the road. End of the season all the farmers band together and round all of them up in like a week which is amazing when they free roam the entire island.

Glacier at 600mm

Glad to be back too cause I still have so so much more from Iceland to get through.  #waterfall`

I took a bit of an extended vacation from posting, first to the beach where I took this, then just settling in my new place but I'm back now. #lightning

A not insignificant amount of my black and white work was with a tern colony near the hotel. The light was just so lovely for it.  #birds  #blackandwhite

This one I liked enough to hang on my wall. The number of black and white treatments surprises me still, but while I was there, the amount I used my 70-200 for landscapes surprised me too.  #blackandwhite

Keeping with the black and white theme this week, like I said it was a surprising number that I ended up wanting for this treatment.  # birds #blackandwhite

I"m a bit of a composition nerd. For this one, for me anyway, it's all about the two crosses being inverse color schemes.  #blackandwhite

Blending that landscape and wildlife vibe and staying firmly in black and white #birds #blackandwhite

First time seeing one of these majestic ducks. Oh how I adore ducks. #birds #blackandwhite

New blog out now about my time at Ingólfshöfði, puffins, skuas, even an arctic fox!

I'm amazed how much of my trip to Iceland ended up in black and white but when it works it works.  #blackandwhite

Staying experimental and used ring light to my advantage for this high contrast black and white scene. My goal was to emphasize the backlight and let the Tern and background fall completely to shadow. #birds

One of the problems coming home with hundreds of keepers is that you get bored of looking at them fast, and a desire to experiment takes over (thats a good thing) how can I make a common image less common? Well heres a try. #birds #puffin

So I went to Iceland so excited to use a borrowed Fuji GFX100RF. 100 MP and 16 bit color sounded like a match made in heaven, but the biggest shock to me, I hated the colors, with a passion. Heres a side by side to my Nikon. Full review and deep dive out now, link in bio.

Another hotel we stayed at was close to an Arctic Tern colony, which was amazing I had never seen so many. This pair was engaged in an intricate dance over the field and it was amazing to capture.  #birds

The weather doesn't always play nice, sometimes it's just sunny but the majesty of the landscape can make up for it. And another landscape shot with a 70-200 which really was a theme for me on this trip, I found I went telephoto far more than I went wide.

I love a tender moment in photography, and these puffins did not disappoint they are just so freaking cute and I loved the way the feathers fanned over the beak as it was preening.

We got to see so many places and like I mentioned I was trying to avoid the postcard shot so when we hit Brúárfoss, don't worry I took the postcard shot too, I put on my 70-200 and went looking for details and lines and ways to really show off that water.

Back to the birds, cause I told you all I did plenty of that too. Every hotel we were in had unique opportunities for birds I've never seen so while everyone rested our driver and I would go birding. Heres a common snipe over the lupines, I was so excited to shoot lupines. #birds

One of my goals while I was there was to move away from the postcard shot. Not that I didn't take them, who wouldn't, but I'm not a landscape photographer most of the time and I can't do better in 7 days than what so many have others done. So I tried to bring my perspective instead.

One of the highlights of the trip was a 2nd chance at puffins. I love my puffin shots from last year but I really wanted a chance to photograph them from a not rocking boat where I could get low. I have so many images now.  #birds #puffins #wildlifephotography

I'm back from an absolutely incredible week in Iceland, filled with epic landscapes, crazy weather, and a surprising amount of birding, so this week is all about that. Heres Kirkjufell mountain alongside the Kirkjufellsfoss waterfalls during a stunning 5 minutes of sunlight.

Fog up in Allegheny #fujifilmgfx #gfx100rf #mediumformatphotography #fineartlandscape #landscapephotography