📸 Bird & Nature Photographer
🌿 Wildlife, Light & Landscapes
🕊️ Malheur Refuge, Flowers & Flight
✨ Purchase Fine Art Prints Available at
www.shop.dnielsonphoto.com Soon after, our family settled in Portland, Oregon, where I was raised and first discovered my deep love for birds. I joined the Portland Audubon Society at age 10 and spent my childhood exploring nature and learning color photographic
techniques from my uncle Ronald Neilson and his friend Charles Conkling—experiences that laid the groundwork for my lifelong passion for bird photography. After earning a Biology degree from Reed College and a medical degree from Johns Hopkins, I returned to Portland to practice medicine and raise a family. Alongside my career as an OB-GYN, I continued to nurture my artistic side, converting darkrooms and taking annual trips to Harney County and Malheur National Wildlife Refuge—places that continue to inspire my bird and landscape work to this day. In 1980, I founded Natural Reflections, a studio dedicated to the production of high-quality photographic prints. My work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions at Camerawork Gallery, the Portland Audubon Wild Arts Festival, the Migratory Bird Festival in Burns, and is represented by the Freed Gallery and the Portland Art Museum Rental Sales Gallery. Though I now embrace modern digital tools, my approach—rooted in the precision of large-format film and technical excellence—remains unchanged. My greatest joy lies in capturing the expressive beauty of birds in their natural habitats, alongside the flowers and landscapes that support them. I believe in the power of nature's beauty to inspire awe, connection, and conservation. As Thoreau wrote: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”
