J.K. Putnam Photography

09/02/2026

My Fireflies of the Great Smoky Mountains photography workshop is open for registration!

This is one of my favorite events of the year. The highlight of this workshop is photographing the world-famous synchronous firefly display, a rare natural wonder that happens only once a year and only for about two weeks. After nightfall, beneath a dense canopy of old-growth trees, thousands of fireflies flash in unison, filling the forest. Believe me, it is unlike anything you’ve ever seen… and that is just the beginning! Many species of firefly are active throughout the park at different times and in different places, and we’ll be searching for them all!

This workshop sells out every year, and a few spots have already filled from my mailing list: https://www.jkputnam.com/great-smoky-mountains/

09/01/2026

Mama bear, and mama bear showing the kids how to clam.

08/29/2026

Me right now except it’s beer and it’s in a can, not flowing down a creek… unfortunately.

08/26/2026

More brown bear photos from Alaska. This mom and her cubs were fleeing an approaching male (second slide), who will kill the cubs given the chance. These moments are always tense and exciting to experience and photograph. In the final slide, the cubs are asking to nurse after all the excitement. Seems it’s normal behavior for them to nurse after such a tense encounter, even with the boar still nearby. We witnessed it on another occasion as well.

08/25/2026

Fireflies of the Great Smoky Mountains has grown into one of my favorite workshops to run each year. Imagine yourself standing in front of this scene! Registration opens soon. More info here: https://www.jkputnam.com/great-smoky-mountains/

08/21/2026

These were really, really hard photos to get. These little buggers don’t stay still for long… and it’s practically dark when they start lighting up. I tried photographing them in flight but found it to be nearly impossible, so I’ll have to try new techniques next year!

08/20/2026

Well, well, well… look who came crawling back. The fireflies. This is from my spring trip to the Smokies, where I led my Fireflies of the Great Smoky Mountains workshop. Each year, I try to showcase these incredible insects a little differently than I have in the past.

The idea for this image was inspired by the work of Pete Mauney whose firefly photographs often depict the landscape as if were “dripping” with bioluminescence. I wanted to explore that idea in my own way.

I’ll be announcing my 2027 workshop soon. If you haven’t already, hop on my mailing list so you’ll be among the first to hear about it.

08/20/2026

08/19/2026

More rainy day puffins from Quebec. We’re growing lots of gourds in our garden this year. The gourds have taught me several important lessons including not to put gourds in your compost.

08/12/2026

Told you. More puffins! This time, we’re back to Atlantic puffins in Quebec.

We had a rainy day on the island, which I was actually excited about. Rain can make photography more difficult, but it can also create some great opportunities. I wanted to challenge myself, so I concentrated on photographing the puffins in flight.

I really like how raindrops look at a shutter speed of 1/500 of a second. At long focal lengths, the drops turn into little lines, showing the movement and direction of the rain. It might sound like a lightning-fast shutter speed, but 1/500 is actually pretty slow when you’re trying to photograph these fast-moving birds.

This location is ideal for birds in flight, with plenty of room to move around and often, an eye-level view of the puffins, which provided great opportunities to capture them flying through the rain.