My Photo Bucket List

Every photographer should have a “Photo Bucket List” - a list of photos that one must take before one dies.

Just like with a regular bucket list, this should not be a list of photos that sound cool, that grows and grows as you travel, adding three new photos to it every day. This should be a list of photos that would make your life feel more complete if you captured them. Photos that you will regret not capturing with your dying thoughts. This should be a list of photos that, if created, would make your heart sing.

Throughout my travels, my list of places I want to travel has gotten far longer rather than shorter. Every new traveler I meet tells me of a place I absolutely must go. However, I have kept the places to travel on my bucket list short and concise. In fact, there are only five places on that list - Mongolia, the Faroe Islands, the glowing beach of Vaadhoo, Maldives, Machu Picchu, and Japan. This is also how I want to keep my Photo Bucket List.

The following is my full Photo Bucket List:

• Orangutan using a leaf as an umbrella in a rainstorm.
• Red deer stag with debris hanging from his antlers on a foggy morning.
• Great gray owl in snow, flying or perched
• Bornean banded langur holding an infant

There are many more photos I want, but these are the top photos.

Interestingly enough, as I was writing this article I wrote 4 more bucket list photos, but while editing it I realized that those photos were not as important to me as the others on this list. On the list are photos that I absolutely must get or I will not be satisfied with my photography.

The last one, the Bornean banded langur, is one of the rarest primates in the world and will definitely prove to be the toughest. I only know of one place I can go to photograph them. And no, I'm not telling. :)

As I cross these photos off my list I will update this post with links to the photos that I spent so much time capturing perfectly (as I will not rest until they are captured perfectly).

I encourage you all to create a photo bucket list, something you can strive toward, if you do not have one already.