About

Thanks for visiting my blog.

I am a natural history photographer located in Western Massachusetts and have been photographing for over 30 years. As with the majority of photographers, I began with a film camera.  But in 2005 I made the switch to digital and have found that the digital revolution/evolution of photography has made many images previously almost unobtainable to be more easily captured.

I have always had an attraction to the woods and meadows and spent much of my childhood enjoying nature and its many plants and animals. As an adult, those interests have magnified into a passion to discover and share as much as I can find and photograph. We humans consider our lives to be quite busy and overwhelming with tasks.  The members of the natural world consume all their lives with the furthering of their existence…growing, feeding and reproducing full time with no breaks for leisure.  The observation of their lives is a pleasure that I hope is shared through my images. I have the greatest respect for all life forms and try to cause as little disturbance as possible while they go about their business.

As the images at the top of the page might suggest, I also have a strong interest in water and the landscape.

It is my belief that the more people become acquainted with the complexities of ecology in nature, the greater will be their appreciation of just how wonderful all of life’s diversity is in this world. And they will note how important is that diversity’s continued existence. I find all aspects of the natural world of interest, but seem to be drawn to the smaller details and hope that I am able to show others what they otherwise would not see. I’ve found that quite often a closer look reveals things that are exponentially more interesting than the entity as a whole.  While a flower may be pretty and very enjoyable to look at, the activity within the flower that evolution has created to further the species is amazing. Flower parts that mature at different times or limit accessibility to ensure cross pollination and in so many different ways are the stuff that human imagination couldn’t create but only copy. The various facets of an insects body, the wide selection of fungal fruit and the way they spread their spores or the varied shapes of leaves to allow sunlight to reach those below are all evolution’s strategies. Whether it is flora, fungi, fauna or the movement of the earth’s natural resources, nature is filled with something new to experience by the minute.

I live in Amherst, Massachusetts with my wife, Mary Beth, and our beagle Murphy. Most of my photography happens from within 50 miles of home.

12 Responses to About

  1. Hi Steve!

    Wonderful photographs! I think my favorite is the moth. Words can’t describe it ~ looks like an embroidery piece.

    Um, you didn’t mention living at Mt. Tom, either… ;)

    Gretchen

    • sggphoto says:

      Thanks Gretchen. I’m glad you liked the Large Lace-bordered Moth.

      Yeah, don’t know how it slipped through the cracks. :-) , but Mount Tom was a nice living experience and glad we shared it. I see Candace Larger on the news occasionally due to her work with a food pantry.

      Steve

  2. Liam Edson says:

    you have some amazing photographs! keep up the good work!

  3. milkayphoto says:

    Beautiful work, Steve! I grew up in Chicopee but now reside in Beverly.

    Is there a way to subscribe to your blog to receive notices of new posts via email? I think it is a setting you need to set up in your profile to add a ‘subscribe’ button to your blog. I would love to see more but am not particularly good at going back to blogs on a regular basis unless I am notified.

    BTW…I’m adding you to my blogroll….

    • Hi Tracy. It’s nice to have the neighborhood connection.
      I have had a couple of people follow me. What I see at the top of my page is a brown bar with the WordPress W in a circle in the left corner and my dragonfly avatar then the name of my blog and then I have an “unfollow” option which I believe will be a “follow” option for you. Let me know if that works. If not I’ll look in to how I would add a follow button in the actual posts.

      I should have actually visited your blog before as I have seen you comment on Tom Whelan’s blog but never made the trip. My loss. :-) Anyway, I have now added it to my Google Reader listing so I’ll see your posts in the future.

      Thanks for adding me to your blogroll. I have done the same for you.

      • milkayphoto says:

        Ah, yes, the ‘follow’ button is how it is done these days. Time for me to leave the ice age of blogging. ;-)

        Thanks for adding me to your roll! I, too, regret not following you before now. Lately, I’ve been weeding out things and would like to get back to blogs that show really, really good images. Too many simply show images taken with their ‘smart phone’, with no concept of how that practice is literally killing the business of professional photographers. :-( Makes me appreciate all the more the ones who are still taking the time to compose shots and getting them correct at the time they are taken rather than ‘fixing’ in photoshop. Probably why I love Tom’s work so much. He is a master at macro!

        Looking forward to ‘seeing’ what happening in your end of the state! :-)

  4. Thanks for following the blog Tracy. I hope I provide you with some interesting images as time passes. I agree…Tom does some amazing work. If you would like to see a lot of other great photographers, check out my link to WhyTake. Wonderful photographers from all over the world. I think you would enjoy all the folks I have in the Links too.
    Too bad all our lovely snow is gone. But maybe we’ll see a bit more this weekend…I hope. :-)

  5. Interesting and informative bio or about me. I am going to like your blog a lot. Beautiful photography.

    • Many thanks for traveling here from Andrew’s blog, Yvonne. I appreciate that you have checked out my postings and hope I can provide something interesting on occasion. I am not nearly the writer that you and Andrew are nor am I as prolific but I will try. :-)

  6. Rick Hollis says:

    Mr Gingold. Love your posts. I almost always learn something from them.
    I teach a nature photography course to youngsters. [An article about, with pictures of some of the young people and some of their pictures is at
    http://thegazette.com/2012/07/14/community-journalism-youth-photographers-take-their-best-shot/
    Could I show your picture to this future classes. I would of course credit you. It is a wonderful example of patterns and also how powerful some images can be the old fashioned way [black and white].
    Thank you for considering my request,
    Rick

    • Thank you for your kind words regarding my posts, Rick. I would be pleased to have an image of mine used to help your students learn about photography. Best of luck with the workshops.

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