Rufous Hummingbird, Wind River Canyon,Wyoming - 1st Place - 48th Cody Art ShowHummingbirds of the Wind River Canyon, Wyoming, 1st Place-48th Cody Art Show.      Finding out last week that my Wind River Canyon wildlife photography & conservation website HogbatsPhotography.com is going to be honored with a Web Profiles review in Shutterbug magazine (March 2015) was quite a thrill; it's written by the talented photographer/writer Joe Farace.  

     In the beginning of this year I'd wanted to update and sharpen the entire look of my website, and I started with the written content; Mr. Farace wrote an article that seemed to be written just for me.  I honestly didn't realize that I was doing something special, as I'm always the last one to know, and his writing was a catalyst for my inspiration.  

     After months of updating this and writing that it was soon Hummingbird season, and as always it consumed me completely; but I knew that the black background that permeated the website needed to come into the twenty-first century.  In the new Shutterbug magazine, Joe wrote in Web Profiles, another of his articles directed seemingly at me.  So I spent untold hours trying to decide what to do with the color scheme, and finally came to the palate I thought made the wild animals talk to me.  

     HogbatsPhotography.com has been up for only sixteen months, yet it's gone through a lot of Albino Bighorn Sheep-"Snowflake"-Wind River Canyon,WyomingThe only Albino Bighorn Sheep in the World, Wind River Canyon, Wyoming. maturation, and will continue to.  But in the beginning of the process of building the site, what I wanted was to try and give the late "Snowflake" the Albino Bighorn Sheep some kind of immortality; he was shot and killed by a hunter last year.  

     I'd spent over twenty-five hours photographing this miracle of Mother Nature over the years, and I thought he deserved a place in history, as none of us will ever see another Albino Bighorn in our lifetime.  I'm the only person on this little planet with professional photographs of "Snowflake" and he seemed worthy.  Now he's gone, and the only good thing that remains are the pictures of him when he was alive, and running with his buddies in the Wind River Canyon.

     The website has become so much more to the people of this area and Wyoming.  I'm able to show people the things they cannot see; and maybe change a few minds about what it's like to be in love with Mother Nature:  "If we cannot take care of the Wild Places, then what are we doing here anyway?"  All I ever set out to do was to try and be a voice for those that have none, if I can.  This internationally recognized magazine review will be just one more step towards an end that I cannot see myself; but my Hummingbirds will be all the better for it.

writing and photography by Michael John Balog/Wind River Canyon, Wyoming