My name is Dennis Fast, and I live in a small town in Southern Manitoba, Canada, called Kleefeld. There are a lot of beekeepers here so our town is known as "The Honey Capital" of Manitoba. I am a retired school teacher and principal who is busier than ever doing what I love to do - photography.

I have enjoyed photography for many years, and other than a few workshops/seminars along the way, I am self-taught. I used to do weddings and portraits but switched to nature and wildlife. Part of the reason for the switch was that being an educator plus a wedding photographer meant I was working with people seven days a week. It left me no time to recharge my personal batteries.

I became fairly serious about photography in the early 1980's. My first passion was birding, at the time, and I wanted to begin capturing some of those amazing creatures on film. I quickly discovered that a 105 mm lens didn't quite cut it for wildlife! As a result I began to spend more time photographing landscapes, and doing macro work. The wedding photography then became a means to finding the spare change to fuel my nature photography addiction.

I have owned a lot of different equipment over the years, and got into digital as soon as the Nikon D1 came on the scene. Shortly after that I gave away my last rolls of film and I've been shooting digitally ever since. Right now I have just replaced my previous cameras with the Nikon D3 and D300. Both are amazing cameras, each in their own way. I also have 11 Nikon lenses in my arsenal, acquired over a long period of time, although they are certainly not used equally. The lenses are: 10.5 mm, 50 mm 1.4, 55 mm macro, 12-24 mm, 18-200 mm, 24-120 mm, the new 24-70 mm, 70-200 mm, 70-180 mm micro, 80-400 mm, and the 200-400 mm. I also use 1.4 and 1.7 multipliers when needed. My next purchase would probably be one of the new perspective control lenses Nikon just announced - I've always been intrigued by the possibilities with that type of lens. I'm also considering the new 14-24 mm which is getting rave reviews.

I still love to photograph birds for their sheer beauty, but probably spend more time photographing big mammals. Certainly Churchill, Manitoba is one of my very favorite places because of the polar bears. But I also love arctic and desert landscapes immensely, and have recently begun to photograph the American Southwest and the Pacific coast - I think I fell in love with them already. And did I mention Alaskan brown bears and eagles?

I constantly check out other photographer's work and feel that I can learn something from everyone. Early in my career, Freeman Patterson was a tremendous inspiration. His incredible eye for design in nature and the joy with which he approaches photography hit a chord with me. In wildlife, I would say that Art Wolfe, Franz Lanting and Arthur Morris do the kind of stuff I aspire to. Of course, I must also mention my good friend Norbert Rosing from Germany with whom I have shared shoots and many a polar bear tale while up at Churchill; and an outstanding photographer/friend from California, who mostly keeps his stunning images private, Pat Price.

I only joined SmugMug in the late Fall of 2007. I was being honored with portfolios in a new Canadian magazine, "Outdoor Photography Canada", and a Michigan magazine, "Whisper in the Woods". I had also just been named an outstanding photographer from the prairies by the Canadian Association of Photographic Arts. All of them wanted my website address to link to their stories so I began some desperate research on the internet to see what I could find. I kept coming back to SmugMug as the one with the most to offer, the least hassles, and the best reviews, and I've been loving it ever since. Probably the best part, though, is the instant response to requests for help from real people. That kind of service is hard to find these days.

I've only just begun, but it's been amazing to see the hits, the comments, and even the sales beginning to come in. SmugMug has made it easy to be a presence on the web. I can now concentrate more on just getting images up there while sales begin to take care of themselves. I love it!

Be yourself. Find what you like to do and do it well - better than everyone else if you can. If you just want to make money stick to weddings and portraits. If you really want to express yourself, shoot whatever you like, but be prepared to work hard to turn it into a living.