Last night was the Artists Reception for the 2015, 50th Annual Cody Art Show, presented by the Cody Country Art League.  It's a wonderful evening of great people, good food and fine art held in the CCAL Gallery in the Cody Chamber of Commerce complex in Cody, Wyoming.  It was a cool, mountain party that ended with the awards ceremony.  It's always an enjoyable Cody art event that is very well attended.

     At last night's Artists Reception, in the Professional Photography Division, I was awarded a 1st Place, and a 2nd Place!  This is the third year in a row that I've captured 1st Place honors with my favorite subject, hummingbirds.  It seems I'm the only professional photographing Wyoming Hummingbirds, and I never use a flash, ever.  

     I have always believed, and observed in the high-country, that wildlife in the 21st Century are very stressed, as is their habitat.  There is absolutely no reason, using today's technology, that a nature photographer needs to stress a wild animal further by subjecting it to a flash unit!  I have never used a flash unit of any kind on a wild animal, and you shouldn't either.  Make the technology work work for you, and let's stop frightening the animals.

     To that lofty goal I'd like to present the very first nesting Broad-tailed Hummingbird in the Wind River Canyon.  Last summer a nesting pair stayed and I was lucky enough to nail-the-shot; after thousands of attempts.  This photograph of the female was really cool, but I felt it needed a certain touch of canyon magic to make it something marvelous.  The idea to make it a black & white selenium print was maybe divine inspiration, at four in the morning.  Here she is, this year's 1st Place award winning Hummingbird----"Landing in Wyoming."   Broad-tailed Hummingbird, (f), 1st Place, 50th Cody Art Show - Photographed in Wind River CanyonBroad-tailed Hummingbird "Landing in Wyoming" in the Wind River Canyon. This photograph won 1st Place in the Professional Division @ the 2015 Cody Art Show----Cody, Wyoming. This is a black &white selenium print by Michael John Balog.        The 2nd Place Award was for a photograph of a baby Rufous Hummingbird that was born right here in the Wind River Canyon, in the middle of Wyoming.  The adorable little male hummer was sitting on the handle of an old basket I rescued from a lady's refuse.  He was photographed over two consecutive mornings from my bedroom window.  Young male Rufous Hummingbirds will always try to control a feeder, if they can.  This domineering, little tough guy is really cute, though. Wyoming Hummingbird, Young Male Rufous - 2nd Place 2015 Cody Art Show - Photographed in Wind River CanyonHummingbird born & photographed in Wind River Canyon, Wyoming. This picture won 2nd Place in the Professional Division @ the 2015 Cody Art Show.      The black & white was framed in a rustic, natural frame.  The foot square image that I printed myself was also framed by me, as all my work is.  The large color baby Rufous Hummingbird image was in a silver and gold jewel-box frame.  Learn from my mistakes, buy and frame your art yourself, and AmericanFrame.com is the only place I will ever trust.  I am not being paid for this endorsement, they are the real deal when you need your art framed right.

     The strangest coincidence is the 1st Place black & white image was the hummingbird that Joe Farace mentions in his review of my website, HogbatsPhotography.com in the March 2015 Shutterbug magazine.  It was my little sister's favorite hummingbird months before that. 

     This year we had a nesting pair of Broad-tailed Hummingbirds in the Wind River Canyon, but they disappeared after the deluge and the mudslides.  I don't know if they left this weird canyon weather or were consumed by it.  It saddens me to think of the latter.  

     All images photographed and digital darkroom work by Michael John Balog, Wind River Canyon, Wyoming.