I have been outdoors all my life. As a young boy fishing, hunting and going on camping trips was a regular thing for my family. I grew up in Kenosha and lived there until two years ago. As a teenager I learned to trap from my father. At the age of seventeen I had trapped every furbearer species that you could trap here in Wisconsin including Coyote, Bobcat, Fisher, Otter, Weasel and Beaver. The counties that I trapped were Kenosha, Racine, Walworth, Langlade and Oneida. I would go to high school thinking about what I was going to catch that day, what I caught the day before or what I needed to do in order to catch an educated animal. It has been over twenty years since I have trapped but it  was those years that gave me the skills to photograph wildlife today.

After spending my working years running privately owned companies  I decided that I needed to spend more time outdoors to make me happy and created Paradise in Images®. I came up with Paradise in Images® to create a valued business name rather than just using my own name for a business. I still get a kick when I see that someone has Googled my name to find my website paradiseinimages.com. When ever I decide to retire and sell the business the buyer will have not only all of the images and accounts but also the Trademarked name. The whole idea behind it was if I couldn’t hold a fishing pole or gun, I could hold a camera. With today’s digital cameras, the major cost is up front when you purchase a high end camera and not in picture printing as in the 35mm. The greatest reward that I get is the challenge of photographing wildlife and capturing an action pose or an image with a lot of character. I have been asked many times to do portraits and always say I don’t do it because there is no challenge. Anyone can photograph people, cityscapes, landscapes and pets, but for me it is all about my skills at getting up close to wildlife. I have taken over 1,000 pictures in a day and if I get one picture worth publishing it was all worth it.

As a wildlife photographer it may mean that I have to get up very  early and travel a lot, but Wisconsin alone has a lot to offer and the Midwest and Canada can greatly expand the amount of species you  can photograph. I have photographed eighty nine species of butterflies here in Wisconsin and always get excited when I photograph one that is a migrant from the south. The migrants cannot survive through a Wisconsin winter and only a few manage to make it to our state each year. Some dragonflies also come up from the south and then head back in the fall. Because they feed on mosquitoes I call them our body guards. I also enjoy photographing wildlife in the middle of a snow storm. Ducks with snow on their  backs or a trophy class Whitetail with snow piled up on his horns  can make my day. Photographing a buck tearing up a tree or two bucks battling and their horns crashing and giving great sound effects to a quiet day can quickly erase the thought of fuel costs for my truck. There are many factors involved in wildlife photography. I seldom use a flash because it can sometimes spook wildlife. The  sun can put a special shine on insects or in a birds eye and having the sun at your back can make all of the difference. When it comes  to animals the wind direction is very important. I take all of my wildlife pictures holding the camera free hand. This allows me to  be mobile and less visible with no set up time involved. It’s all  about getting that picture of a trophy buck before he hears the camera clicking and runs. Unlike taking human portraits, I have never met a bird or animal that would let me set up my tripod and then follow posing directions before taking a picture. This means I have to sometimes be creative and lip squeak or grunt to get the animal to look at me with the perfect pose.Paradise in Images® sells digital stock images and Fine Art  Prints. All of the software editing, printing and framing is done by me to maintain the high quality and lower costs for our buyers.

Always Outdoors,

Todd Sima