About Me

A little bit more about myself.

Thanks for stopping by. My name is Jonathan Taffet. Currently, I'm a freshman at Texas A&M university. I plan on majoring in mechanical engineering and minoring in ecology and conservation biology.

I've always loved being outside, so in hindsight, my passion for birding seems inevitable. My photography journey began inside, however, with stop motion animation. After tens of thousands of frames, I became familiar with the ends and outs of my Canon DSLR. I decided I wanted to film a nature documentary in the style of David Attenborough's Planet Earth, but I grew impatient with the Cuban Anoles in my front yard, so I settled for photos. Shortly after, I went to a creek (really a drainage ditch) near my house and crossed paths with a Yellow Crowned Night-Heron. This was my spark bird: the bird that sparked my interest in birding, although it wasn't until I came across eBird in January 2021 that I really started birding. Since then, I've observed 336 species of birds in 4 different states, 208 in my home Harris County alone. You can find my eBird profile here.

Besides bird photography, I am the assistant photo editor for the Battalion. Before that, I was a photographer for the Communications Department at my high school. These assignments pushed (and continue to push) me out of my telephoto comfort zone and helped me to become a better photographer. My work has been featured on the Strake Jesuit Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and in the quarterly Strake Jesuit Chronicle magazine, the Texas Catholic Herald, the Houston Business Journal, and on the front page of Houston Chronicle's Examiner News.

Outside of birding and photography, I enjoy woodworking, mowing lawns, playing soccer, doing crossword puzzles, and volunteering.

I shoot on Canon. After reverting to a Canon 5D MK. iii from a Canon M50, I went mirrorless again, this time with the Canon R7. I am very comfortable shooting with the whole range of Canon's lineup, from the R5 to the T5, both of which I have used. I use the Canon RF 100-500L lens for birding and just about any L series lens I can get my hands on for school event coverage. That being said, the majority of my bird photos you see were taken with the Sigma 150-600mm Contemporary lens.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions, suggestions, or comments!

Email: jstaffet99@gmail.com
LinkedIn

A special thanks to Philip Taffet and Mr. Dan Pepe for all their help and guidance. Without them, none of this would have been possible.