Happy New Year and welcome in 2025! Hopefully everyone had a relaxing New Years Eve and were able to enjoy some time with family and/or friends. With 2024 in the rearview mirror, I have reflected on what a year it was and thankful for the clients, friends and my family, along with the ability to travel and create images. While the travel this past year had some challenges, it helps keep me grounded and thankful for each day. While I do not make resolutions, I do want to expand my opportunities and push my limits while maybe showing you some different viewpoints of this small world which we live on. Buckle up and let's have some fun in this new year.

Our first image to start this new year, decided to go back in time and present a black and white image of an old structure. Lighthouses are normally fun to photograph and interesting to see the design differences around the US and World, plus they have so much history. This lighthouse is Portland Head Light, located on Cape Elizabeth, outside of Portland Maine. Construction was first started in 1787 and was first lit in January 1791 while the keeper's quarters construction started in 1790. Similar to lighthouses of this age, they go from using whale oil lamps to electric lamps, all illuminated by light keepers and eventually they become automated and no longer require personnel to control the light and fog horn. The house for the keeper has changed over the years, with a small structure built originally, a little larger structure was built in 1816 and the current structure was constructed in 1861 and provided housing for the head and assistant lightkeeper and their families. The lighthouse itself was raised 20 feet in 1865. This particular lighthouse was automated and officially decommissioned from US Coast Guard operation in August 1989, the Coast Guard still maintains the light and fog signal. If you would like to learn more about this lighthouse and the park grounds, visit https://portlandheadlight.com  This image was captured last week during a family trip over the Christmas holiday, the sun had set and I was hoping for some waves crashing into the rocks while fighting to use any remaining light I could. Camera Data: 70mm 1/10 sec F5.6 ISO6400

Long time subscribers expect the action or wildlife image to be an American Bald Eagle but this year changing that up and presenting an image captured during my Yellowstone National Park visit last August of a coyote. Most likely everyone has heard the yaps and howls once it gets dark but they are active during the day also. Coyotes are members of the dog family and are much smaller than a wolf, they are also found in nearly every state in the US. These are very intelligent animals, having adapted, survived plus are thriving even with humans attempting to destroy them and are now residing in cities like Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. The US spent millions of dollars over a century and a half trying to exterminate coyotes, but today they inhabit three times as much land as they ever did before the program started. It's an example of humans thinking they can control something before they have a full understanding of the checks and balances wildlife have in the ecosystem. I realize it's not a simple answer with our population growing and requiring more land to develop infrastructure while forcing the animals into new areas but I disagree with massive slaughter without biologists being allowed to perform a full study of the animal and environmental impacts which takes decades of time. This particular animal was watching a herd of Pronghorn Antelope and I believe was waiting for additional help before it attempted to chase a possible meal, unfortunately a cell phone wielding group of humans interrupted the coyote's plan when they felt a closer picture was going to help them. Ironically one of the people in this instance came to me later and asked what type of animal were they photographing - if you don't know the animal why would you move closer to them? These are probably the same people that approach bison thinking they are fuzzy cows but don't understand when or why the bison is charging them, which is one reason I keep my distance from any specifies before I have a better understanding of their behavior. For me, the pronghorn and coyote moved away and I lost an opportunity to see the circle of life in action.  Camera Data: 800mm 1/3200 sec F5.6 ISO1600

Here's a link to download the appropriate version of this month's image for your desktop, one for standard screens and one for wide-screens along with a Mobile Phone Image. For desktop computers or tablets, Right click on the text for the format you need and select Save As, save to a location on your device and change the background as needed for your OS.

For Mobile devices, most mobile phones require a long press and a menu popup will be displayed, click save then follow the steps for your operating system to set as your background image.

If anyone has problems or questions with their mobile device, let me know and I will try to assist.

http://www.timlesterimages.com/calendar/january.html

Enjoy the images this month and let me know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions for this new year of monthly images.

Tim Lester

TIM LESTER IMAGES
Email: tim@PROTECTED
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