Happy Birthday NSN!

This month marks the 5-year anniversary of NatureScapes.Net (NSN). And what a five years it has been! We started with a few friends pooling their energies, talents and expertise. We worked nearly nonstop, round-the-clock. We wanted to create a thriving community -- a place where like-minded nature photographers could hang out, learn the ropes, make some connections, and most importantly, show their work.

It is with great pleasure and pride that I announce NSN's newly designed, and greatly enhanced, website.

In order for a website to be successful, particularly a community based website, it must be an ever-evolving process. We have worked hard over the past few months to bring our members and readers a new “foundation” from which we can continue to support our growing community of nature photographers. Now that the foundation is completed, the “building” process will continue on . . .

With this, our Images of the Year issue, we announce the winners for the 2007 Images of the Year and congratulate all participants from NatureScapes 2007 who posted 26,455 images, wrote 337,913 comments and thoughtful critiques and grew their craft and art so well.

Robert Henri (1865 – 1929), the great art educator and critic, is quoted in The Art Spirit:

"Art when really understood is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing. When the artist is alive in any person . . . [that person] becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self-expressing creature.

With the publication of the January 2008 issue at NatureScapes.Net also comes my resignation from all remaining active roles with the website, including Editor in Chief.

For more than four years it has been a privilege to contribute to our nature photography resource in a variety of ways. But at this point in my life I'd like more time and freedom to pursue my photography in greater depth as well as some other interests.