The Sublimely Beautiful Photographic Art of Ellen Anon

Ellen Anon

I have known Ellen (and Dr. Jack) Anon for several decades. The Anons hired me for a few days of instruction somewhere in Florida in the mid-1990s. Ellen, a Photoshop expert, quickly became a skilled and creative photographer and remains a great friend. She co-led many Instruction Photo-Tours with me, most especially to Bosque del Apache NWR when it was great and I ran three sold out workshops consecutively with 16 or 17 folks signed up for each. Ellen uses Sony gear for most of her wildlife work and Canon for much of her in-camera creative stuff. As you will see below, her images are astoundingly creative and sublimely beautiful. You can see more of her stunning work here on Instagram.

If you have any questions for Ellen as to how she created any of the images below, please leave your query in a comment.

Your Call

I know that your choices will be tough, but do your best to pick your three favorite images and let us know why you made your picks. As it turns out, my absolute favorite of the ten featured photos is Ellen’s least favorite! Judging art is quite subjective so the request above is about which images float your boat.

In the last blog post, two folks favored #5, the copulation image, while others went for 1, 4, and 7. I like all of the images but if you twisted my arm I’d have to go with the tight tern head shot with the tiny fish, #4, most for its uniqueness. That despite the fact that it was a ridiculously huge crop. It is, however, extremely effective as presented. #2, un-mentioned, might be my second favorite as I love the soft light, the pose of the bird, and the included habitat.

When was the last time your surgeon drove you home from outpatient surgery? The always-smiling Dr. Steven Poupolo

What’s Up?

On Monday afternoon, I headed back to Nickerson in hopes of photographing the three small American Oystercatcher chicks that I had seen on Saturday. I did. The skimmers are setting up on scrapes, there are seemingly a zillion Common Terns on scrapes everywhere including all over the open beach to the west of the East Colony. They are so scattered that there is no way they will be roping off the whole beach. And I discovered several more oystercatcher nests with eggs. I kept 97 of the 3087 photos from that afternoon. I really liked four of them. Coming soon.

On Wednesday, Dr. Steven Poupolo surgically repaired two trigger fingers on my right hand, long and ring, at the Precision Care Surgery Center in East Setauket, Long Island, NY. From the moment I walked in at 11:47am until I left I was treated wonderfully by the entire staff. As noted here before, Dr. Pop graciously agreed to drive me back to Alissa’s house in Lake Ronkonkoma after his last surgery. After me, he repaired the broken wrist of an elderly woman so we did not leave until 3:00pm. My surgery went perfectly well with a local (lidocaine — a fast-acting local anesthetic used to numb specific areas of the body or block nerve signals during surgery) and sedation. I never really went to sleep. When I became aware of some activity, I thought that they were just beginning. I was surprised when they said, “You’re all done.”

Today is Thursday May 28 2026. I will continue to do third and fourth edits on old image files — I am up to 4.84TB available out of 8TB, and catch up on some IPT business matters. Whatever you opt to do, I hope that you too choose to have fun and enjoy life. Please remember that happiness is a choice — Byron Katie, The Work.Com

If an item — a Delkin flash card or reader, a Levered-clamp FlexShooter Pro, or a Wimberley lens plate or low foot — for example, that is available from B&H and/or Bedfords, is also available in the BAA Online Store, it would be great, and greatly appreciated, if you would opt to purchase from us. We will match or beat any price. Please remember also to use my B&H affiliate links or to earn 3% cash back at Bedford by using the BIRDSASART discount code at checkout for your major gear purchases. Doing either often earns you free guides and/or discounts. And always earns my great appreciation.

Gear Questions and Advice

Too many folks attending BAA IPTs and dozens of photographers whom I see in the field and on BirdPhotographer’s.Net, are — out of ignorance — using the wrong gear, especially when it comes to tripods and more especially, tripod heads. And the same is true in spades when ordering new camera bodies or lenses. My advice will often save you some serious money and may help you avoid making a seriously bad choice. Please know that I am always glad to answer your gear questions via e-mail. If you are desperate, you can try me on my cell at 863-221-2372. Please leave a message and shoot me a text if I do not pick up.

Warm Moments

This was one of those special sunset images that brings a smile and warmth when I look at it on a very cold, gray, winter day. It’s nice how thinking back to warm moments, whether weather wise or moments shared with friends, can brighten a colder day.

Memories

A while ago my husband brought me a huge, gorgeous bouquet of a variety of flowers. We photographed them using all sorts of techniques, most of which are more directly representational (meaning visually obvious) than this one. And yet this one is my favorite of the ones I took. It’s a long exposure of a protea flower with deliberate camera movement to abstract it into colors and shapes. Then I did a multiple exposure of it in post processing and this is the result. No longer remotely literal and yet the feeling of it reminds me of the beauty of the gift.

The Gift

Sometimes when there are a lot of things going on in the world that are stressful for any number of reasons, I spend some time with nature and some time trying to be creative. The other day I photographed some of my clematis on a lightbox and was playing with them on the computer. I started to go outside and there was a mayfly posing on the door. It stayed there patiently while I went and got my camera and then posed for a few minutes as if it were a professional model. And then it was gone. But it was just the touch that this image needed I thought.

Backlit Drama

Watching backlit snow cascade off branches of trees in a slight wind always captures my attention. It’s such a transient moment of beauty. Capturing that can be a bit tricky – similar to capturing a glacier calving – you have to be aimed in the right direction before it happens, with limited clues as to where that might be. As much as I love the ocean, I love trees as well. Hearing that the trees in our national forests may no longer be protected baffles me. In fact there’s a lot I don’t understand recently. When I was young I read a book, “The Giving Tree” and I can’t help but think of that and the lessons it taught

Elegance in Simplicity

Sometimes the simplest images are actually deceptively challenging to make. Initially when I saw these backlit flamingos they looked like musical notes to me. There were a lot of them! But trying to photograph a group of them without mergers or background distractions became a challenging task as they were all moving about, but for a split second this grouping co-operated!

Angry Birds

A bit of humor, because who can’t use a light hearted moment? Overheard … “I think that crazy photographer thinks we’re birds!!! ” (I was trying to photograph water droplets for a class and it wasn’t going exactly as hoped. But flipped upside down the leaves and droplets and refractions do remind me of birds.) Anyway have a great day.

The Conductor

I’d recently returned from a fantastic trip to South Africa organized by @steveandanntoon. It exceeded all expectations in every way including our outstanding guide Calvin Kotze. This is actually a pic of a giant kingfisher from our last morning. I had no idea of the tremendous variety of birds there and fell in love with them as well as the critters of course.

The Visitor

This is a black chinned hummingbird in this image, notable for the iridescent purple patch on its throat (very visible if you view the image large – not so sure about on a phone screen though). He was only an occasional visitor when I was in Arizona a month ago but so beautiful!

Making Tracks

Sometimes it’s smart for me to run my abstract images by family members before posting them. I had created another version of this dune abstract that I quite liked … right up until it was mentioned that that version looked like an ants view of a zebra passing overhead. And once I saw that, I couldn’t not see it anymore! LOL! So this is a variation of the original.

Ephemeral Beauty

I’m finally starting to thin out some of my thousands of images and in doing so came across this iceberg from Greenland. The warm light on the iceberg was magical reflecting off the nearby rock walls.

Ivory Gull on Ice

Ivory Gull is found in the high arctic; they often hang out on ice floes. I made an image that I like of this bird that showed its whole body. My head says I liked seeing its whole body but part of me likes the mystery of seeing less of its body and the way the light in the sky was playing on him in the image above.

City Life

Sometimes I find myself more engaged with the impression of something rather than the obvious realistic rendition of it. This is an in camera multiple of two images of a city scene (Zurich), one with a bit of vertical movement and one with some horizontal camera movement.

Typos

With all blog posts, feel free to e-mail or to leave a comment regarding any typos or errors.