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Interesting Nature Facts: Updated Daily

Featured Gallery of the Month: Forests!

Latest Photos and Wildlife News

Upcoming Photography Workshops: Delayed Until Spring 2023

Frequently Asked Questions

Featured Gallery

Forests

Forests are critical habitats for all life on Earth. Forests pump out the oxygen we need to live and absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale (or emit). Just one adult leafy tree can produce as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year. Nearly half of all the world’s known species live in forests, including 80 percent of biodiversity on land.

Forests

Forests are critical habitats for all life on Earth. Forests pump out the oxygen we need to live and absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale (or emit). Just one adult leafy tree can produce as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year. Nearly half of all the world’s known species live in forests, including 80 percent of biodiversity on land.

Forests

Forests are critical habitats for all life on Earth. Forests pump out the oxygen we need to live and absorb the carbon dioxide we exhale (or emit). Just one adult leafy tree can produce as much oxygen in a season as 10 people inhale in a year. Nearly half of all the world’s known species live in forests, including 80 percent of biodiversity on land.

Latest Photos and Wildlife News

The Black Turnstone: A Charismatic Shorebird

The Black Turnstone: A Charismatic Shorebird

The black turnstone feeds mostly on small crustaceans and marine worms, which it can find on rocky shorelines or mudflats. It is also known to eat small insects, mollusks, and occasionally plant material.

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Female Saffron-winged Meadowhawk

Female Saffron-winged Meadowhawk

The last time I passed through Montana, I stopped by some duck ponds in Anaconda at a place called Warm Springs State Wildlife Management Area and there were dragonflies and damselflies everywhere! I was familiar with some of the species, but this one olive-golden...

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Spanish Dagger

Spanish Dagger

The Spanish dagger is one of those plants that brings a bit of nostalgia to me. It was a very common non-native landscaping plant in my childhood in Manatee County, Florida that always had these amazing displays of flowers in the spring at the very top of the plant....

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Interesting Nature Facts #155 – Blackberries

Blackberries are one of the most delicious wild berries you can find on almost any continent and belong to the rose family, Rosaceae (notice all those thorns?). Did you know that what we call the blackberry isn’t actually a berry though? It’s technically an aggregate...

Interesting Nature Facts #130 – American White Ibis

When baby white ibises hatch their bills are straight. Ibis bills don’t start to curve downward until they are 14 days old. MORE PHOTOS OF BIRDS MORE INTERESTING NATURE FACTS Interesting Nature Facts is a series about the flora, fauna and places that make North...

Interesting Nature Facts #1 – Osprey

The only raptor in North America that dives into the water after fish, the osprey is the sole bird of prey to feed only on fish. Weighing only 3 pounds, this strong flyer with a 6 foot wingspan can carry a trout of 2 or 3 pounds. The osprey's only natural enemy, the...

Interesting Nature Facts #95 – Bladderworts

Mostly found living in lakes and rivers, the carnivorous bladderwort has a floating stem with tiny sack-like traps growing along it. These traps, or ‘bladders’, have clever door-like valves that open and shut within thousandths of a second when triggered. The...

Interesting Nature Facts #72 – Salmonberry

The salmonberry as we know it is actually an aggregate of drupelets - groups of small berries each containing a seed that form a single cluster from one flower - just like other bramble berries such as raspberries and blackberries. MORE PHOTOS OF BERRIES MORE...

Frequently Asked Questions

1 - Fine Art Prints, Canvases and Other Printing Options

I have an automated ordering system for fine art prints that not only makes ordering easier, but gives you more options. Choose luster (my personal favorite – it’s a cross between matte and glassy), old-fashioned glossy, classic black & white or even have your images printed on metallic paper or canvas. As always, all my printing is done on ultra-premium museum-quality, acid-free professional photography paper with commercial archival inks that won’t fade or “yellow” over time. I care enough about my work to have it only printed on the best materials possible.

Next to every image in our gallery there is an “Add To Cart” button that will give you all the options available for that image in a very user-friendly format, and will make ordering a breeze. There is even an option at checkout for custom cropping.

And as always, if you have specific questions that aren’t answered on this page, please contact me and I’ll be more than happy to talk to you over the phone or by email, or even walk you through the ordering process. When in doubt, contact me before ordering.

All final orders will be double-checked and verified personally by me to make sure every order looks absolutely perfect before going to print.

2 - Image Licensing and Stock Images

I am pleased to announce that every single image on this website is available for instant download to your computer – no waiting involved! An ever-increasing amount of our business these days has been electronic image sales for bloggers, web-designers, news media and those who want the image in electronic format only. Many of these are publishers, editors, and other media specialists who do not require the printed image for their work or project.

We have a system in place for instant downloading of high-resolution (.TIFF) images for both personal use and commercial use. Just choose the size you want and it’s yours instantly, and we’ve tried to make this new system easy and simple to use and understand. There are two types of downloads available for you to use immediately. Read more about uses and downloading options.

Commercial Royalty-Free:

This type of download is for use in business or enterprise. This can include editorial work, blogging, sales material, non-profit, pamphlets, brochures, inclusion in a website, or any other commercial application. If you are not sure, ask yourself, “Am I planning on making money with this image or using for a business-related project?” If this is the case, then this is the right type of license needed. This does not include printing images for resale, print publication, or digital resale. If you do need an extended license for commercial work that requires use in mass printing, television, film, or other related commercial uses, contact us at your earliest convenience so we can discuss and we’ll get you a fast and reasonable quote.

Personal Use:

This type of download is for an individual using the image for personal use only. This includes classroom usage, school projects, personal prints, screen savers, usage for painters and artists to create derivatives that aren’t commercial in nature, etc. Essentially for uses that you aren’t trying to make money from our work. If you have any questions or extra information regarding uses please contact us and we’ll get you pointed in the right direction.

3 - More Information about Customized Fine Art Prints and Special Orders

Ordering prints from our galleries just got even easier! Now we are offering not only prints, papers, metal prints, acrylic and metal wall displays but a whole new range of customized frames, mats, and other accessories! Most prints are shipped within three business days and come with a no questions asked 30 day return policy. (I’ll discuss the details with you directly before you order – some of these materials may not be listed in the galleries, and I will take those orders personally – contact me for more information)

Through our partnership with Fine Art America we offer the most customizable and easy way of providing you with the very best professional prints for your office, home or gallery.

Custom frames and mattes – design it with amazing online tools! (Contact us so we can set it up personally with you)
Metal Prints (printed directly onto high quality aluminum)
Acrylic Prints (looks amazing with float mounts)
Stretched canvas prints
Museum wraps
Gallery wraps
Choose from over 230 high-end frames and 100 mats
Specialty fine art papers – including watercolor and luster!
Even greeting cards! Many more options, and we’re adding more every week!

4 - Usage Guidelines: Copyright Notice

We appreciate that you would like to use our photographs and/or images for your own projects. Please ask if you would like to use photographs for a blog or any other specific use. We offer exclusive rights to some of our photographs and it is important that you contact us, as this can then get us into legal troubles.

You may not copy images for paintings, drawings, or in any form or derivative without written permission. Your easiest option would be to purchase a “personal use” discounted download.

You may not sell or resell any photograph/image that Rich or Galina Leighton has taken or created. We have in our employ two competing copyright violation services searching out illegal usage of our work. Legal steps will be taken if misuse of our copyrighted material is detected.

If you want to use one of our images, you are required to purchase or license, which is easily and instantly available for every image through the shopping cart. Either contact us for your needs or use the automated pricing option for each image when viewing individual images (“Add to Cart” button). Every image you see in our online galleries is registered with the United States Copyright Office, and we do follow up on every single infringement case, all around the world. If you have any questions about any of this, please contact us.

You may not copy images for paintings, drawings, or in any form or derivative without permission.

We work really hard to create these images. Please respect our copyright. Thank you.

The Florida Sandhill Crane – Sentinel of the Okaloacoochee Slough *Updated*

When people think of Southern Florida, they rarely think of lonely mile after mile of endless cow fields and citrus groves, or the acres upon acres of sugarcane that would resemble the enormous cornfields found in the Midwest if it weren't for the sweltering heat....

Native Orchids of the Rocky Mountains – Western Rattlesnake Plantain

Last month I was in Alberta and Montana unsuccessfully trying to get grizzly bears on camera, but I did bring home some beautiful botanical images. Here are the first of them! Check out this Western Rattlesnake Plantain! ~ click on any image to enlarge or find...

Double Arch, Moab Desert, Utah – Ancient America

This is my second entry into my new series, Ancient America which features a minimalistic, raw and unpolished look at black and white landscape photography from around North America from the viewpoint of what it would have looked like before people arrived.  Double...

Terra Ceia Preserve

While difficult to see most of this out-of-the-way preserve without a boat, I was able to find a place to park the car and work my way into the wilderness enough to get this landscape photograph highlighting some of the botanical biodiversity in the region. Several kinds of oak trees, swamp lilies, an variety of ferns and the ever-present cabbage palms show a wild and unspoiled wetland so rarely found along the Peninsular Gulf Coast.

Desert Solitaire – Delicate Arch

A weird, lovely, fantastic object out of nature like Delicate Arch has the curious ability to remind us - like rock and sunlight and wind and wilderness - that out there is a different world, older and greater and deeper by far than ours, a world which surrounds and...

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