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Something for posterity: Bird photobooks

As you get older you start to wonder about things like…why the hell do I have thousands upon thousands of digital photos on my computer? What’s the purpose? What’s going to happen to them when I’m gone? I certainly have an online presence in social media and my website where my photos are shown, but I wanted to start making something more tangible that perhaps my son and others could have, something more than just photos on a hard drive.

My wife always makes photobooks from our “big” yearly vacation, as well as one for family photos for a given year. Why not do the same with all the thousands of photos I have sitting around on my computer? I started to make photobooks based on themes (categories of birds). So far I’ve only gotten one back from the printer, but I really liked it so have followed up and made five more that are currently being printed. This morning I just finished #6.

I’m keeping them pretty simple, with what to me is an elegant black hard cover and background on the interior pages, with photos and a short descriptions of the species, date, and location the photo was taken. Simple, because I wanted the books to focus on the photos themselves, and not any descriptive material from me.

The six I’ve completed are:

  • Shorebirds
  • Raptors
  • Owls
  • Warblers
  • Waterfowl
  • Sparrows

Here are some example pages from some of the books. I’ve got a least another 8 or 10 planned. It will take me a while to get them all done, but will be a nice series to have and hold for the future.

Owl Photobook 
Photography by Terry Sohl
Pages from the Owl Photobook
Shorebird photobook
Photography by Terry Sohl
Pages from the first I did on Shorebirds
Sparrows & Towhees photobook
Photography by Terry Sohl
Pages from the most recently completed on North American Sparrows & Towhees

Now available – Free 2016 Bird Calendar

Free 2016 Bird Calendar - South Dakota Birds and Birding

February 2016’s featured bird, the Northern Saw-whet Owl. Click the link to individually download printable calendar pages for the coming 2016 year.

As I always do about this time of year, I put together a free, downloadable and printable bird calendar for the coming year.  As a long-time South Dakota “tradition”, the calendar of course features the Great Kiskadee for the month of December (in honor of the one freakishly lost bird that is still around!). You can access the calendar here:

Free 2016 Bird Calendar

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