Harold Wilion Photography

I have been involved in all types of photography including nature, landscape, real estate and portraiture, both in black and white and color, as well as digital manipulations. I started in the 1980’s as a serious hobbyist. Although I have photographed all over the United States and many other countries, due to some physical limitations I now photographs mostly nature subjects in eastern New England not far from home, and I’m now actively photographing on an almost daily basis. Although I have all types of images from the past originally on film, all the photos in this website are based on my recent photos within 75 miles of home and taken since January 2022.

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Due to back issues, I ended up putting my passion for photography aside for about 30 years as the heavy lenses, tripods and tripod heads back then were too much to handle due to back problems. I purchased a new camera in January 2022 with the intent of only doing landscape photography to avoid the heavy equipment I thought necessary to do bird photography again. After driving around for two weeks with my camera on the car seat beside me, and never even getting out of the car to take a photo as I just wasn’t coming across any landscapes that motivated me, I had an epiphany. I always wanted to photograph a Snowy owl.

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I put my old 600mm f4 manual focus lens that weighs a ton in my car along with my old heavy aluminum tripod and huge tripod head. I did find a Snowy that first day at Salisbury Beach. Even though I was able to set up my equipment in the parking lot very close to my car, I realized why I gave it up 30 years ago. Now I have many more physical issues than just the back problems I had when I was younger, and it was actually difficult to even lift my camera/lens combo to set it up on my tripod because of their weight and a bad shoulder. I decided I needed a lighter lens, so off to Hunt’s I went the next day and bought a 100-600mm zoom and went north again. This combo I was able to handle, especially on a tripod. However, I just wasn’t happy with the image quality of that lens, returned it, and got Nikon’s 500mm PF lens. The rest is history. I was able to get very sharp photos with that lens, even with cropping, and was out photographing with it almost every day. My original passion was reignited. Since then, I have invested heavily in other prime telephoto lenses for which I give all the credit to as far as the picture quality of my images, and the ability to get tight shots of my subjects. The lighter lenses, carbon fiber tripods, and much lighter tripod heads have made it possible for me to enjoy my passion once again, although most nights I have to sit with ice packs while watching TV. No pain. No gain.

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All photographs are taken with high end Nikon cameras, the D850, and the Z9 (as of June 2022). Most photos have been taken with their sharpest telephoto prime lenses such as their 800/6.3, 600/4, 500/5.6 and 400/4.5 allowing a high degree of sharpness even with magnification due to large crops. 

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All photos are shot in RAW and have been processed in Lightroom and/or Photoshop and if needed, DXO Pure Raw and Topaz