Once again, here I am again at the airport. I'm heading to Iceland to photograph the wilds and the winter wonderland plus those crazy Northern Lights of Iceland. I hope the weather holds to support some areal photography that I have scheduled the day before everyone arrives.

We went big on our last full day on the Namiri Plains… and by big, I mean BIG cats! It was all about lions and cheetahs today; we saw a lot. The lion photographed here is named Ziggy, like Ziggy Marley, because of his dreadlocks. The tall grasses can wreak havoc on a lion’s mane – their hair gets entwined on the grasses causing massive tangles and mats, which eventually become dreadlocks. Without a comb (or leave-in-conditioner) in sight, the dreadlocks keep growing – it’s almost impossible to stay well groomed for a lion with a sizable mane like Ziggy’s.

With the exception of my camera gear, this is the lightest that I have ever packed.  Sitting at the SEATAC airport boarding in just under an hour and sporting an ear to ear smile.  I'm off for another exciting private safari to Tanzania.  With a limited number of clients, there will be lots of personal attention and coaching, just the way I like it.  For this trip, we are covering two areas, a private camp in the Ndutu area followed by another private camp in the Namiri concession.

It’s that time of the year for a summary of what has past and a look forward into the next two years. As 2015 comes to a close, I can say that the year was loaded with fun, travel and adventure.

Several trips this year made significant positive impacts on my photography and me - Ultimate Primates, New Zealand, and Svalbard. Before I get to those trips, a quick summary is in order: I led 8 trips to Africa (3 to Botswana, 2 to South Africa, 2 to Tanzania and one to Uganda/Rwanda), spent 30 days in New Zealand and Tasmania, crossed the equator 18 times, and logged some 150k actual flight miles getting to these locations. I celebrated my birthday 400 miles south of the North Pole while photographing polar bears.

As I sit here with the family about to start the food prep for Thanksgiving – US Army style in Germany, I am starting to process or reprocess some of my images that have been untouched since I shot them.  The shot below was taken in a remote area of Northwestern Tasmania this past spring while traveling with Jaime Dormer and Eva Ho.  Our objective was to explore the more remote areas of Northwest Tasmania.  Under the guidance of Jaime, we really saw some incredible sights.  In many cases we had to push ourselves a bit to get into the best shooting position, but it was worth it. For me, this is a must do again trip.  Next time I want to spend a great deal of time along the rocky shores of this remote area and hopefully some aerial work.