With the end of 2025 coming soon, I have been thinking about some things.
In 1999, I had to get a pacemaker because my heart was stopping for 15 seconds. That was also the time I started my photography, so it is hard for me to say it was really a bad thing after looking back now.
I still have had some health issues, but Bonnie has stood beside me for over 41 years and I know that has not been easy. We have two great kids in Kristen with her and her hair salon and Kyle is really doing great things with his photography.
The grandkids, Kase, Kannon and Aliya, are our hearts.
I have thought about some of the places that my photography has taken me including Alaska, taking pictures of the northern lights in Iceland, Redwood trees in California, Colorado, saw a grizzly bear in Canada, watched a pair of Bull Elk lock horns in Montana, and saw a bunch of Bison in Yellowstone and Wyoming.
I have taken pictures of waterfalls In North Georgia and on up to Tennessee. I’ve taken pictures of the Grand Canyons - Georgia’s little one (Providence) and the real big one out west.
I have taken pictures of several Barred Owls, Great Horned Owls and many other birds with over 120 different species right in my backyard and lots of other wildlife here in Brantley.
I have had three photos win the Georgia Council for the Arts Contest (2015, 2017 and 2026) hang in the Governor's Mansion for a year each time.
I have a handwritten letter from late former President Jimmy Carter saying how he fished on the Satilla River with his dad when he was a little boy. He also okayed me use the letter on the back cover of my Kase for the Environment book that I self-published.
I also self-published Satilla Solitude, Okefenokee Swamp Wild & Natural, and Zirkle to Alaska.
All of this has happened since my health issues with my brain and heart. If I had not had them, I just wonder what these past 26 years would have be like.
• Wayne Morgan is freelance wildlife photographer and author.
