Jacob Spendelow

Jacob Spendelow says he had the good fortune of growing up in the beautiful state of Oregon. There, he spent most of his childhood playing in the forests and wading in the creek that ran through his backyard, and going on camping trips throughout the Pacific Northwest. He developed an interest in nature from an early age, and as he got older, birds, in particular, became a subject of endless fascination for him.

His first forays into bird photography began when he borrowed his father's Nikkormat camera and 70-300mm lens to snap a few photos o birding trips. Jacob developed a more serious interest in photography in 2005, when he traveled to Minnesota to see the numerous Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls that came down from the north during that remarkable invasion year, and took a few grainy images of the owls with a point-and-shoot camera. His burgeoning interest led him to purchase his first DSLR the next year, and soon thereafter, his "birding trips" began evolving into "photo trips."

His passion for nature and birds continues to grow with each passing year, and he now spends most of his free time working on photography and planning his next photo trip.

When he's not enjoying nature, he's usually working for conservation through development of clean energy technology. In his "other life," he's a science advisor in the DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, and a member of the technical staff at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Editor's note: Jacob took this photo of himself at a little pool in the high desert of central Oregon, using a remote shutter release.